Review: Beyond the Veil by S.C. Wynne

Title: Beyond the Veil

Author: S.C. Wynne

Length: 299 Pages

Category: Romantasy

Rating: 4 Stars

At a Glance: Beyond the Veil unfolds with no big surprises, which isn’t a bad thing as it keeps the plot flowing briskly without needing to pause for unnecessary detail or description that wouldn’t have served the overall narrative. What readers get is a succinct reluctant hero’s journey and of course, Lorenzo and Ian get their happily ever after because, first and foremost, this is a romance.

Reviewed By: Lisa

Blurb: Being a psychic in the small seaside town of Fox Harbor is challenging enough, but winter months are brutal. Not that using his clairvoyant abilities to hunt down lost pets isn’t thrilling, but Lorenzo wouldn’t mind a tiny bit more excitement in his life.

Be careful what you wish for?

Things get more stimulating when the charismatic Dr. Ian Thatcher takes a romantic interest in him. Unfortunately, their promising evening takes a ghastly turn when an old man dies on Lorenzo’s doorstep, after warning Lorenzo his life is in danger.

Before Lorenzo can say “Give me my old boring life back, please” his home is ransacked, a fiery being tries to burn him to death, and he’s informed he’s the only hope to save the world.

Review: “He’s found you. Don’t you understand? He knows you’ve returned as prophesied.”

Lorenzo Winston is the Chosen One. He’s also a psychic who ekes out a living helping people find lost pets and worrying about being able to pay his bills. Unlike his one and only rival in the small seaside town of Fox Harbor, Lorenzo is legit, a bona fide conduit to the afterlife. Convincing the smug and annoying Dr. Ian Thatcher that he’s not a grifter isn’t on Lorenzo’s list of priorities, more like Ian is on Lorenzo’s list of smug and wealthy idiots, but fate and the future of the world has other plans for the two men.

Lorenzo and Ian are about to enter a battle with a demonic enemy and become the saviors of the world. A responsibility Lorenzo doesn’t want and Ian doesn’t believe. Until they each have to open their minds to the truth that this threat is bigger than the both of them, and they must follow the prophesy to its conclusion in a war that pits human against human and Lorenzo against pure, unadulterated evil.

Beyond the Veil leans into the fated mate trope to cement Lorenzo and Ian’s relationship. Ian keeps popping up in Lorenzo’s life, while Lorenzo tries to push Ian away, and yet Lorenzo knows instinctively that keeping the doctor close is somehow the right thing to do. What this does is open Lorenzo up to some hypocrisy when he castigates Ian and pushes him away for being skeptical all while Lorenzo forces his own skepticism on the peope who are there to guard him. It didn’t endear Lorenzo to me that he couldn’t recognize his own dissembling while he was performing it right in front of my eyes, but that didn’t keep me from wanting to see the final war for peace and survival.

The story unfolds with no big surprises, which isn’t a bad thing as it keeps the plot flowing briskly without needing to pause for unnecessary detail or description that wouldn’t have served the overall narrative. What readers get is a succinct reluctant hero’s journey that follows Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces (sidenote: if you haven’t read this or Campbell’s The Power of Myth, they’re both fascinating if you get into heroes and symbolism and archetypes). Bad things happen when Lorenzo denies the “call to action”. But, in the end, he is victorious and bestows that all-important boon upon his fellow man.

And of course, he and Ian get their happily ever after because, first and foremost, this is a romance.