Obtain Stealthy Steps (Nanostealth #1) Developed By Vikki Kestell Shown In Document

WITH IT the writing actually DOES become a story!

I really had to work at staying with this book, but I'm glad I did.
The style of writing at the beginning seemed juvenile at best, boring at times, even, However, Kestell's ability to draw the reader in with great characters and an interesting storyline finally reveals itself, . . but WAAAY into the book, It isn't until nearly the end that the reader finally can appreciate all the details laid out in the seemingly boring beginning.
I have purchased STEALTH POWER, book, and hope to be able to continue the more interesting part of the story now that the groundwork has been laid.
Character:
Gemma Keyes is an interesting narrator, She projects a pleasant smile or blank expression, intent on blending in with her surroundings, Yet, since the whole book is told from her point of view, you know that she is quite different than her projection.
She is snarky, angry, and insistent, At the same time, because of her Aunts influence, she strives to do the right thing, She struggles to embrace the faith of her Aunt, her adopted grandfather, and her new friends,

Abe is Gemmas adopted grandfather, After her Aunt passes away, he becomes her guardian of sorts, He is her neighbor and protector as much as possible, A bit stoic and paranoid, Abe is definitely the word of wisdom in Gemmas life,

Dr. Bickell is Gemmas father figure, He is kind and quirky, striving to do the right thing, He may be an odd man, but he is a good man, and that makes him extremely likeable, He is one of the few that see through Gemma to her true self,

Zander is Gemmas friend, He stops by and gets to know Gemma at the request of Abe, As a pastor at a local church, he is Gemmas conscience, He doesnt flinch away from the real problems, yet shows a compassion and kindness that Gemma knows she doesnt always deserve.
His background, once revealed, only makes him more intriguing,

General Cushing. The villianess behind this story doesnt get that much screen time, She may be the antagonist, but she acts more like a catalyst than a true opponent of Gemma, Cruel and calculated, I want to read the next book to find out if she gets her comeuppance,

Emilio is Gemmas neighbor, A young kid who is considered a delinquent by Gemma most of the story, he grows over time, Eventually, details are revealed that make him a little more likeable than Gemma initially believes, And the ending. oh its so good!

Other minor characters: Mateo, Genie, Mrs, Calderon, and Corazon. Their involvement with the plot is important for what they bring out of Gemma, Sometimes it is compassion, but other times it is hatred, Youll have to read the book to find out exactly who does what,

Plot:
The events of this story are hard to describe, The first half of the book is flashback, detailing what has happened prior to the inciting event, Most books are unable to do this well, making flashback simply an info dump, This is not the case for Stealthy Steps, The author does a wonderful job of making the events that happened before the inciting event fascinating and gripping, I read through the first half significantly faster than the second half, This is because I felt like the second half was a lot of inward reflection without that much action, Dont get me wrong, there is action, but it isnt the same as the first half, It doesnt feel like it has as much weight as the first half, That being said, her psychological reflection is interesting to read, and I wanted to know if the problem would ever be solved, so I kept reading to the end.
And the ending definitely made me want to read the next book, so she did a great job with that.


Setting:
The majority of the book takes place in Albuquerque, New Mexico, What is fascinating to me is that even though the setting is plausibly realistic, it also has enough science fiction to make it so that most readers wont be exploring the abandoned facility there.
Also, because the author told us the location of the book, I was able to picture it in mind, I imagined what I saw in Arizona as the setting: a red desert with cactus and panoramic views, Whether this is the actual case or not is another question, but it certainly made the action come alive as I read.
Her descriptiveness definitely helped her when it came to reading,

Overall, I really enjoyed this YA Christian Science Fiction, The plot, characters and setting combined were enough to enthrall me, and I hope to read the rest of the series in the future.

My name is Gemma Keyes, Other than my name, I am utterly forgettableso those who never paid much attention to me in the first place haven't exactly noticed that I've disappeared.
Vanished. Oh, it's much more complicated than it sounds, I've had to learn the hard way: Invisibility comes with its own set of problems,

I should tell you about Dr, Daniel Bickel, worldrenowned nanophysicist. We used to work together, but I'll be candid with you: He's supposed to be dead, Well, he's not. Imagine my surprise. Instead of the proverbial "six feet under," he's subsisting in an abandoned devolution cavern beneath the old Manzano Weapons Storage Facility on Kirtland Air Force Base here in Albuquerque.


"I need to show you what I'm protecting here, Gemma," he insisted,

I stared into the clear glass case, I could hear humming, clicking, buzzing. A faint haze inside the box shifted, Dissolved. Came back together. Reminded me of how mercury, when released on a plate, will flow and form new shapes, Only this, this thing was "flowing and forming" in midair,

"Do you see them" Dr, Bickel asked.

"Them" I was confused, My mouth opened to a stunned "o" as the silver haze resolved into blue letters,

H E L L O

Dr, Bickel hadn't pressed any buttons, Hadn't said anything to them, Hadn't gestured.

He grinned. "Ah. They've noticed you. They know they haven't seen you before, "

"Well, I wish they wouldn't notice me!" I choked on the words, my eyes fixed on the glass case.


And I need to warn you about General Cushing, The rank and name likely conjure images of a lean but muscled old soldier, posture rigid, face cemented in unyielding lines, irongray hair cut high and tight.
Let me disabuse you of that impression: General Imogene Cushing is short and a tiny bit plump, She wears her silvered hair in an elegant braid knotted at the nape of her neck, and she knows how to smile sweetly.
With the deadliest of sharks,

You wouldn't suspect a twostar general, an Air Force O, of being a traitor, would you

Nanostealth
Book: Stealthy Steps
Book: Stealth Power
Book: Stealth Retribution
Book: Deep State Stealth

"Vikki writes the kind of faithfilled fiction that hooks you within the first few pages, will not let you go until you have finished, and leaves you wishing for more.
"
Janis Braun, Seattle, Washington

"Her books are not just for 'chicks'! I was amazed how engrossed I became in the lives of Vikki's characters, and how much I could relate to their situations.
"
Ed Dunne, Los Angeles

"Be prepared to put life on hold, That's all I have to say!"
Rebecca H, New Jersey

"You will laugh, you will cry but, most of all, you will be uplifted, "
LaTisha Holland, St, Augustine, FL This review is going to contain a ton of spoilers in case you couldn't tell by the fact that it was hidden because it contained spoilers.
You've been warned.

SUMMARY
Okay, so the story starts out right smack dab in the middle of some pretty intense goings on.
I don't usually appreciate that because I have NO idea what the heck is going on, Gemma is babbling about them and it sounds important, but the reader has zero idea what's happening, But this book reads like my friend wrote it, so I put up with being disoriented,

Gemma works as an administrative assistant/project manager for some super scientificy company, I didn't really process all that stuff at the beginning and she said I didn't need to understand, so we're good.
But as a part of this job, she has access to some pretty secret information, This gets her pulled into some intrigue that she'd really rather not be a part of, since she, you know, has lived her life to be invisible.


Gemma thinks she knows who's good Dr, P and who's weird Dr, B but actually she's been used, Dr. P and the uberevil General Cushings have used Gemma to spy on Dr, B to try and steal his work, Luckily, Dr. B is a genius and is two steps ahead of them, So when they try and kill him, Dr, B escapes and hides out in a mountain fortress for three months,

Gemma has been fired because she knows too much and now she can't get a job anywhere in government thanks to evil General lady.
She's in a sort of limbo when she receives an email from Dr, B. Yep! He's alive I already told you that, but Gemma didn't know yet, He gives her directions to his hideout and thus begins a few weeks months of visits, Gemma becomes Dr. B's connection to the outside world buying fresh food, picking up orders delivered to his safe house, etc,

Not sure if the way Dr, B and Gemma communicated is possible, but it's awesome,

But Cushings also knows that Dr, B is alive and is working super hard to find him, One day, she succeeds. In the process of escaping and all that chaos, Dr, B dies, and Gemma becomes invisible, Not like before when no one noticed her, like NO ONE CAN SEE HER!!!!

She discovers that the work Dr.
B was doing, that Cushings wants, those little nanobites, have hidden her, They can do that, as explained in a very long section that was honestly way over my head, The first half of the book was a little slow, but the second part picked right up, Anyway, Gemma is invisible and now she has to figure out a how to live like this while not alerting anyone to her condition and b how to avoid Cushings and not letting her get the nanobites.
No problem, right

Wrong,

Gemma actually does an admirable job, but in the end, she confides in Abe, Zander, and Emilio about her situation.
And she was right to be worried about Cushings who does indeed find her,

The ending has you exclaiming "WHAT!" because Dr, B has more lives than a cat, apparently, Yeppers, he's still alive somewhere and the nanobites are going to find him,

MY THOUGHTS
I know, I've already sprinkled some thoughts above, but it's my review and I'm calling this section "MY THOUGHTS".


LIKED: How it was written the POV, I wouldn't be surprised if I discovered that the friend who recommended this to me actually wrote it, It totally seems like something she'd write,
DID NOT LIKE: The "prologue", I don't like prologues because they just confuse me,
LIKED: The references, I got most of them Star Wars, Star Trek and this line that we say ALL THE TIME in my family "not your circus, not your monkeys"!
DID NOT LIKE: It was a little slow at the beginning and the when Dr.
B is trying to explain his work to Gemma it was to technical for me,
LIKED: This line "Some smart people in the government I don't think we have those anymore"
LIKED: This other part "I dislike religion, Gemma.
Religion does a lot of damage to people, It takes what should be the simplest, purest expression of God's love, something even a child can understand, and replaces it with some kind of formula a complex and impossible set of rules and behaviors when it is really about God's give of grace and His power to transform us.
" Totally true and I totally agree,

I've probably left out something that I wanted to mention, but I think this is good for now.
On to book two and then try to figure out how to read book three because of a stupid rule that says you can only loan a Kindle book once.
WHAT! Gemma Keyes tells readers her story in first person, as she writes an account of what happened one fateful day in her physicist friends secret lab.
Shes funny, direct, and sometimes speaks directly to the reader,

Shell tell you why shes in hiding and whos chasing her, Shell explain enough of the nanotechnology microscopic bits like computer chips, if I understand but shell reassure you its okay if you dont get it.
She doesnt get it, herself, She was simply the scientists assistant in the wrong place at the wrong time, Or in the right place at the right time, to keep his creation from being stolen by a corrupt general.


As well as being a fastpaced technothriller, delivered with strong, fresh description and the aforementioned humour, this is a story with heart and with a thread of faith.
Theres more going on with theyearold neighbour boy than Gemma wants to see and theres a friendly pastor with a criminal past who could be more than a friend if he wasnt a Christian, and if Gemmas life wasnt in danger.


I thoroughly enjoyed this book and look forward to reading the rest of the series, The mix of heart, faith, and action made the characters real to me, And since the storys set in presentday Albuquerque, its only the science thats a stretch from the real world, Otherwise, its just a corruptmilitaryofficialouttodestroyinnocentcivilianwithasecret story,

Vikki Kestell writes faithfilled fictionthebook Nanostealth series and a number of historical novels, Stealthy Steps is free in ebook format from most online stores, and if this is your type of story, I heartily recommend it.
For more about the author and her work, visit vikkikestell, com.

copy from my personal library,./

I didn't fully understand the premise of this book going into it, because the synopsis is more like a boileddown excerpt from part of the book, with a little extra character introduction.
Most of the information is there, but it's cryptic, Here's my synopsis though: Gemma Keyes is a young woman fresh out of college, and takes a job as a project manager at a top secret lab.
She mostly organizes things and takes meeting notes, but this makes her privy to some classified information, When she hears the wrong information not her fault, she is fired, Months later, after an accident in the same lab claimed the lives of thetop scientists she was working for, she's contacted covertly by one of those scientists, Dr.
Bickel obviously not dead. She ends up being asked to help him continue his work, which he's keeping secret from everyone at this point.
This work is in nanotechnology, When the government, and in particular, a nasty military general who has no scruples about how she gets information amp technology for her military, closes in on Gemma and the man she's helping, an unexpected incident leaves her invisible.
Literally. Some people see the invisibility aspect as a spoiler, but it's how the prologue ends, so I see it as part of the set up.


So now Gemma has to figure out how to live life completely invisible, which presents all sorts of problems, especially since she practically lives in a fish bowl.
Half of the book is about this, as well as her concern about being discovered by the general who went after Dr.
Bickel. This half of the book is entertaining and interesting, I liked the relationships Gemma developed both before and after her invisibility, My favorite thing was the ways she tried to communicate with the nanotechnology that is responsible for her uncontrollable invisibility.


The first half of the book had some interesting parts as wellespecially the relationship that began and/or developed between Gemma and Dr.
Bickel, Gemma and the associate pastor of her old church more on that below, and an established relationship between Gemma and an older neighbor.
However, the first half of the book was bogged down heavily by a lot of exposition and repetition,

First, there is a long and tedious description of how Gemma first got into the secret, abandoned military based where Dr.
Bickel directed her to meet him, It might not have been so bad, had we not already given given those steps most of them, but backward.
Then there are thepages of Dr, Bickel talking and explaining. Explaining how he avoided dying in the lab explosion, explaining how he got himself set up in this mountain base, and longest of all, explaining how the nanotechnology works.
In detail. That most of us reading aren't going to really follow, Some of it did prove to be important to the rest of the story, but honestly, much of it wasn't.
At one point, after aboutpages of explanation, Bickel says, "'Would you like to hear more about the nanomites before you go, Gemma'" And I literally thought, "I wish I could say no.
" Since the book is told inst person, and Gemma didn't understand a lot of what he said, I have a very difficult time believing that when she wrote this account some weeks or months later, she could remember all of the science that he spouted.
It could have definitely been boiled down for us, and even more so, would have then fit in with the style of narration that the rest of the book has.


Much of the information in the first half of the book would have been okay on its own, but since it was all told together in the first half, it made it difficult to keep reading.
I totally understand why the prologue is a long description of the point when Dr, Bickel is discovered in his secret lab by the general, ending with Gemma finding herself invisible, It needed that action and intrigue to get people hooked, Still, if I hadn't been recommended this book series by my mom who has recently been very anxious for me to read it so she could hear what I thought, I might have at least set it down and come back to it later.
As such, once you're past that half of the

book, it does get more interesting, It's the first book in a short series, so some of the expositiony first part can be explained as setup to an entire series, and it does have an ending that left me wanting to know more.
Still, I think setting up an entire series isn't an excuse for so much infodump all at once,

The associate pastor I mentioned above, named Zander, is where the Christian aspect of the book comes in, for the most part.
He's invited to visit Gemma by her older neighbor, and he is a good example of a Christian in fiction.
He is generous, compassionate, flawed, and complicated, Gemma sees a lot of sides of him, some of which draw her to him, but others of which push her away.
His very Christianity is the biggest obstacle to their developing relationship, though, because Gemma is quite against Christianity, He speaks the truth in love, and shows Christ's love through his action, while still being a believable human being.
I look forward to seeing how this develops in the rest of the series,

I was particularly bothered by some of Gemma's actions in this book, and the way she excused them, but I think that was intentional.
She also got angry, or at least upset, at weird things, which made her seem like sort of a petulant child to me sometimes.
I don't know if that part of her personality was intentional or not, There were a few inconsistencies that stuck out to me like why Dr, Bickel let Gemma take pictures in his secret lab, after the intense precautions he'd asked her to take in getting there, and in their communications.
Also, I feel the need to give some trigger warnings: domestic abuse, child neglect and endangerment, descriptions of or allusions to gang violence.


So to sum up, yes, the first half of the book was slow, but the rest was good enough, and I have faith that the following books will pick up the pace, that I felt the book was worthy of.
stars. I would recommend the book to fans of Christian mysteries amp thrillers and lovers of this type of scifi, .