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The First (2013)

by Jason Mott(Favorite Author)

3.51 of 5 Votes: 3

languge

English

genre

Paranormal Fantasy

publisher

Harlequin MIRA

review 1: Having really enjoyed The Returned last year I was excited to see these short story prequels come out. In The First, we get to see how it all began with the return of Edmund Blithe and how this mysterious occurrence not only effects him but his fiancé and the rest of the world as they try to navigate through this unusual, frightening and exciting miracle.It has been about a year since Emily's fiancé, Edmund Blithe, was hit by a bus and died. Edmund had proposed the day before he died and it has taken Emily this entire year to try and move on with her life. So imagine her surprise when the news shows Edmund, very much alive and being held somewhere in Washington DC after walking into work like no time had passed. Emily wants answers and sets out of Washington DC to try a... morend find Edmund.Edmund, for his part, has no recollection of his death and feels like he just woke up like any other day. After going to work and seeing the terror and surprise on the faces of his coworkers, Edmund is taken to Washington to answer round after round after round of questions. Scared himself and wanting to speak to Emily he is told he will need to wait to see her and needs to help those questioning him figure out what is going on. Everyone is fascinated and terrified of what this means and are determined to get to the bottom of it. But one man will be touched enough by Edmund's need to see Emily to help him make it happen.Going back and forth between Emily and Edmund's points of view, The First is a fascinating look at not only the world's attempt to solve the mystery of why Edmund came back but the smaller, much sweeter, attempt by Emily and Edmund to come back to each other and reestablish that relationship Emily thought she had lost. It is short and sweet and very satisfying. I am excited to see where Mr. Mott takes the other two short stories!
review 2: The Returned was a lyrical novel of past and present, life and death, and pain and remembrance. It wasn't a particularly great novel, but it told a pleasant story about death while maintaining a very positive outlook. It's a book about people suddenly returning from the dead -- no zombies or rot here; the people just show up alive like no time has passed, without much of an understanding of what's happened to them -- and just before its release, the author and publisher released a series of e-short-stories that looked at a few of the Returned.What makes the stories intriguing is that they give us part of the story told from the points of view of the Returned. The novel didn't give us that perspective, so it's interesting to see how certain theories are either confirmed or denied through these stories. There's still not much in the way of answers -- thankfully, I should add -- but they do add a bit more to the world where the dead can return to life like nothing ever happened. I'm just not sure that it's necessary to see the world from the Returned's perspective.Mott captured the reaction to the Returned well over the course of these stories. In "The First," he shows the reactions to people reacting to the very first person to Return, from the perspective of he who Returned. To him, all was normal; to everyone else, it was something terrible and horrifying. In "The Sparrow," Mott shows us how people view the Returned. Most people tend to look at them as people, but enough people also view them as things, as something not human. The couple featured in this story represent those viewpoints. In "The Choice," Mott shows us how the return of old, lost loves can disrupt lives.Overall, though, the stories are about grief and regret. They're gentle stories, ones that give a touch of hope to those missed moments, and offer us a glimpse of what it would be like to get them back. They're touching, moving, and poignant, but what they add to the world of the Returned is small. The points that Mott makes through the themes of these stories are covered in The Returned, and save for one final summation at the end of the last story that wraps up the point of this brief series, there's not a lot new here.I can't recall if any of these three Returned feature in the novel, but parts of the novel feature in the stories. As such, it makes me wonder if these stories are meant to be read before the novel, or after. I'm fine with having read them out of chronological order, and think that might be the intent.Ultimately, people who read The Returned will probably get the most out of these books, but I don't consider them necessary. If you want to return to the world of The Returned, though, this is your best way to get there. less

Download links for: The First

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