Frank Peretti

Jul 27, 2014 14:19

ILLUSION A Novel - by Frank Peretti (2012 hardcover edition)

The novel itself was .... Odd.
Overall, I quite liked it - but it didn't appeal to me like other Frank Peretti books have. (I.E. Monster, or The Oath, or House co-written with Ted Dekker)
Can't quite figure out what I didn't love about this novel.

Everybody knows magicians are performers, right?  That all of their tricks are misdirection or optical illusion, correct?  Well, what if someone could actually use magic to enrapture the audience?
 And what if that magic isn't occult magic or demonic forces, but an unteachable (mostly intuitive) and perhaps irreplaceable touch of reaching across or through dimensional barriers?
Could such an act be the million dollar show of a lifetime?
Is the ability worth your life?

Eloise Kramer doesn't think so - nineteen years old, with no paper records, no identity, and nobody who knows who she is.  All she has is  memories - her entire life - which are from 1951 to 1970.  Everything between 1970 and 2010 is a blank.

Dane Collins, a master magician who recently lost his wife of 40 years, Mandy, in a fiery wreck, is trying to move on with his life.  It is not easy, because he keeps running into a young lady who looks just like his late wife.  Dane isn't sure he knows what he wants, beyond the chance to say goodbye to the lady who shared his success and failures through two-thirds of his life.

Eloise is only just learning how fickle public interest as a magician can be.  And that, like every other job, there are risks in the job.  But to her, entertaining the crowd isn't a chore - it is her career!  A chance to become somebody, and forever escape the mental hospital she still sees behind closed eyelids.

Dane is being encouraged by his his best friend, to train the next generation of talented, up-and-coming street-preformers, helping then move up from simple-sleight-of-hand card tricks, to top-notch full-stage shows.

Eloise and Dane find their lives entwining - after he saves her life from people who don't want her to use her magical abilities.  Can they stop the covert group before more people end up dead?  Or will the biggest attraction of the year do Eloise in?

findings, book rec, movied

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