Illusion by Frank Peretti

About the book:


Dane and Mandy, a popular magic act for forty years, are tragically separated by a car wreck that claims Mandy’s life—or so everyone thinks. Even as Dane mourns and tries to rebuild his life without her, Mandy, supposedly dead, awakes in the present as the nineteen-year-old she was in 1970.

Distraught and disoriented in what to her is the future, she is confined to a mental ward until she discovers a magical ability to pass invisibly through time and space to escape. Alone in a strange world, she uses her mysterious powers to eke out a living, performing magic on the streets and in a quaint coffee shop.

Hoping to discover an exciting new talent, Dane ventures into the coffee shop and is transfixed by the magic he sees, illusions that even he, a seasoned professional, cannot explain. But more than anything, he is emotionally devastated by this teenager who has never met him, doesn’t know him, is certainly not in love with him, but is in every respect identical to the young beauty he first met and married some forty years earlier.

They begin a furtive relationship as mentor and protégée, but even as Dane tries to sort out who she really is and she tries to understand why she is drawn to him, they are watched by secretive interests who not only possess the answers to Mandy’s powers and misplacement in time but also the roguish ability to decide what will become of her.

Frank Peretti has crafted a rich, rewarding story of love and life, loss and restoration, full of twists and mystery. Exceptionally well written, Illusion will soon prove another Peretti classic.



My review of Illusion:


I had never read a Frank Peretti book before reading Illusion.  I had only heard great things about his books.  Since I have recently become a fan of books like this and the authors who write them, I was more than excited to get a chance to finally read a Peretti book.  I do have to say that I was a tad disappointed with this book.  It was a little slow for my liking and it took me a while to read it and I found myself putting it down and reading something else for a day or so and coming back to it.  That is not usually how I like to read a book, but I just needed to read something that interested me more.  I am a huge fan of authors Travis Thrasher and Mike Dellosso and I expected to be wowed by Illusion as much as I am wowed by these other authors, but I just wasn’t.

I don’t want you to misunderstand, I didn’t dislike this book.  I was impressed by Frank Peretti’s writing.  He certainly has a great deal of complexity and depth which is something I respect greatly, but Illusion was simply lacking the wow factor that I was expecting.  I’m not sure how fans of Frank Peretti feel about this book.  I do know that I found this book good enough and well written enough to make me want to seek out more of Frank’s work.  There are many positive aspects to this book that made it worth the read.  Perhaps I had expectations that were too high, but like I said, I want to give more of Frank’s work a try to see if I like his other books better.




This book was provided for review by Howard Books.