Gyre (The Atlas Link #1) by Jessica Gunn

This is the first book in a fantasy series aimed at young adults.

Archaeology is one of Chelsea's passions in life; the other music. One night after leaving a gig she is mugged, and when a stranger comes to her aid, Chelsea's life takes a dramatic turn for the crazier. She discovers she can teleport and lands up on SeaSat5, a military ship working on a classified quest about Atlantis and mysterious artifacts connected with it. On board she meets the stranger (Trevor) who saved her, and so begins an adventure of war between Lemuria and Atlantis, betrayals, new friendships, discovery of powers, and of course, love.

The story is well written, a little slow to get going but with an action-packed finish. I enjoyed the dual POV between chapters as it gave you a good insight into different characters' motivations. The violence and romance scenes have been written with a young adult in mind and are age appropriate. The ship itself was a fantastic piece of technology with an amazing description. I liked the idea of the warring factions as you never really hear of any other underwater worlds in fiction other than Atlantis. It was also good to see a character like Trevor, who was thrown into the middle of the war, take a stand against the beliefs his parents wanted to enforce. Chelsea was a good strong character and I can't wait to hear more of Valerie's story.

I got a little annoyed at the continual references to the Lemurians and Atlantians being at war; it was just repeated far too often and the reader doesn't need to be constantly reminded. I felt that Trevor needed to grow a bit more of a backbone so I'm hoping in later books he finds himself. Not too many editing mistakes but one that really did irritate me was the continuous use of "could of" instead of "could have", and finding silly things like "road up her arm" instead of "rode up her arm".

All in all a fun story, written in an easy to read and comfortable style. I'm looking forward to seeing in which direction the story goes.

Thanks to NetGalley and Curiosity Quills Press for the chance to review the book.