A saga that probes the boundaries of good and evil, destiny, and the human soul.
Frank Hess awakens to find himself dead and transformed into a spirit, with memories of life erased. Disoriented, Frank learns that he is now an “Observer”—a rare spirit charged with shepherding humanity through battles unseen. But Frank’s initiation into the afterlife is anything but simple. Drawn into a hidden conflict among Observers, Tricksters, Demons, and manipulative Gods, he must quickly learn to wield powers he never knew he had while confronting devastating truths about his past. Accompanied by ancient mentor Michael and the enigmatic Rebekkah, Frank navigates a world where energy flows from deep-seated drives, trust is fleeting, and each choice carries cosmic weight. What begins as a search for identity evolves into a struggle that spans memory, morality, and mortality, culminating in revelations that upend everything he thought he knew about himself. With a mix of emotional depth, spiritual intrigue, and high-stakes conflict, Brian Thompson’s The Observer launches a saga that probes the boundaries of good and evil, destiny, and the human soul.
Brian Thompson has a knack for tension and twists that set the stage for an unforgettable saga, and this opener starts with a bang for a richly imagined afterlife full of originality and intrigue. The concept itself is brilliant, but the novel truly shines by relying on its characters to bring this brilliance to life in ways that grip the reader and make you never want to let go. Frank Hess, at the center of it all, is a highly endearing blank slate that readers are sure to imprint on immediately, and his emotional journey is as gripping as the cosmic battles he faces. His haphazard guide, Michael, is also a standout character with bold dialogue choices and an authorial wit that sparkles around him in equal parts mentor, comic relief, and sage. The plot twists around this enigmatic pair and the others they meet along the way, balancing the action with profound meditations on memory, guilt, and redemption. In this, Thompson has crafted a wonderfully morally gray world where no one can be trusted, but everyone deserves your attention in case they turn out to be something you didn’t expect. This makes for a read that begins simply enough and becomes more complex and emotive as you go, with a truly jaw-dropping twist later in proceedings that is so brilliantly executed that you’ll go back to read it twice. Blending the intensity of urban fantasy with the depth of philosophical allegory, The Observer stands as a cerebral, bold, and compelling debut.
