Lisa Mangum's The Golden Spiral ~ Reviewed

The Golden Spiral
By Lisa Mangum
Shadow Mountain 2010
978-1-60641-635-8

Review by Michelle Griep

His eyes. His touch. His kiss. Now Dante's gone and Abby will do anything to get him back.

The hourglass door has closed behind Dante, sending him back in time to hunt down Zo, Tony, and V. Abby knows that Dante, as a Master of Time, is the only one who can stop them from destroying time itself. She also knows that he will need her help. But almost immediately, things start to change, and Abby's worst fears are realized when Zo begins targeting her past specifically.

The bank is eroding. The barriers are thinning. And time is running out.

All right. True confession time. I read the last page of this book before I started the story. Stop your groaning. If you read the first installment of this trilogy - The Hourglass Door - then you'll totally understand my need to know if Dante and Abby end up together or not. So...do they? Unh-unh, not telling. You'll have to read The Golden Spiral to find out.

All that to say that The Golden Spiral is an absolute must read. Yes, the love story between Dante and Abby manages to deepen. Sure, the action is non-stop. And of course there are more mind-bending time travel concepts to consider. But what amazed me most is the stunning writing that author Lisa Mangum cranks out for her sophomore novel.

Frequently the second book in a series turns into a yawner. An author has a truckload of time to put into a debut novel but the second is usually written under a deadline. That can make for mediocre writing. Not so for Mangum. Snappy turns of phrases. Depth of emotion. A plot that twists more than the river of time. Mangum pulls off all this and more.

My only grump is that now I have to wait until Summer 2011 for the third and final installment in The Hourglass Trilogy. When it finally hits the market, I will be the customer with my face mashed against the bookstore door waiting for it to open. And if you read The Golden Spiral, as I highly recommend, I'm sure I'll see you there too.

Just don't get in my way.

Bonus Review:


Abby finds her life in turmoil and that a malevolent master of time is out to cause her more sorrow. Will Abby have the strength and wits to reorder her life, help her friend, and free Dante from a prison of darkness?

The first two-thirds of the book are Dante-lite, but the last third douses the reader with romantic interludes. Though still sweetly innocent, I found myself getting annoyed with the gazing and kissing and touching and the references to eyes, hair etc. However, the storyline crackles with intensity and the pages flew despite a hurry-up but slightly sloggy section during the resolution and set-up for book three.

Reviewed by: Kelly Klepfer