Review: The Earth Painter by Melissa Lee

Holly Scrugg’s life is turned upside down when her father loses his job and they have move to Chesnee, South Carolina just prior to her 18th birthday. She is not looking forward to meeting new friends at school and would rather read her Kindle than socialize with other students. To her dismay, she is assigned to the Drama Club, where she notices a young man named Theo, but nobody else can see him.

She runs into the Theo at local restaurant called The Fish Camp, where the boy had painted beautiful realistic scenery on the walls. The strange thing is that the owners do not remember ever hiring him nor do they recall ever meeting him.

As Holly befriends Theo, she learns that he is not exactly human. A long time ago, when the Earth was a blank sphere, the sculptor created three painters - Theo the earth painter, Fritz the water painter, and Walden the sky painter, and each painter is given an assistant called a Khai-Ree, to paint the Earth. Additionally, the sculptor created five sciences - Physics, Chemistry, Geography, Biology and Astronomy. One of the painters hates humanity and sees Holly as a threat. To make matters worse, Holly’s crazy ex-friend wants revenge.

Author Melissa Lee has tangled together an original paranormal tale that does not involve vampires or werewolves, but instead focuses on the creation mythology. The main character Holly is a typical teenager that readers will like. I felt sorry for her because of the way her mother treated her, and at times, I just wanted to slap some sense into her mother. The dialogue is well written and plot is clever compared to other young adult paranormal books. Overall, I loved reading The Earth Painter and I am looking forward to the sequel.

*I would like to thank Bewitching Book Tours for sending me a review copy.

About the Author:

Melissa Lee is a wife and stay-at-home-mom of 3 young boys. 

She’s been making up stories in her head for as long as she can remember but only got serious about it in 2007, after reading Twilight and rediscovering her own dreams to write. 

Finally, she put her Journalism degree to use and started writing and hasn’t stopped since. She has studied fiction writing at various conferences, and from numerous writing coaches. 

She signed her first contract with Crushing Hearts and Black Butterfly Publishing in 2011

http://melissaleeweirdfiction.blogspot.com/