The Field Trip by R.A. Andrade

It's been a long while since I read science fiction, not since those old Dean Koontz days when I devoured most of it. This one was a mysterious surprise.

At the start, I couldn't wait for the adventure and the traipse to the New England forest for I know the place is lush and picturesque. But, of course, I had to wind my way first through the botany professor's rather mundane turned lively love life coupled with some angst. There was something that bothered me yet I couldn't put my finger on it until only near the end.

On his way to the research trip, he meets this odd and rather repulsive (in a D.H. Lawrence kind of way) (disturbing) woman and yet something in her rough-around-the-edges ways drew him to her. They then disembark together into an adventure neither of them ever expected.

Neither did I. That's the surprise part. The characters aren't very much endearing at first impression though further on in the book they were given such depths that your heart just goes out to them in the end. The more I think of it, the more that they could almost win me over.

Oswald, however, is simply one of a kind. He totally won me, hands down. The best relationship here, I think, is the rapport between Oswald and Ross. Their engagement was written naturally and seemingly without strained effort. It breathed like a living form.

The only little head scratching one that bothered me was the psychology of relationship as partly displayed here. Perhaps, in a way, it speaks to some men and women who find themselves unnecessarily stuck to someone they couldn't break off with even though it doesn't make sense anymore. But don't let this dissuade you.

Just to give you a taste of what's coming, it gives a little throwback feel to the old famed Steven Spielberg film and J.J Abrams recent nod but for adults. Field Trip is right up to the alley of those who seek more than a traipsing adventure in the forest, a sci-fi feel and best of all, a love that knows no bounds.

Summary

An adventure mixed with a touch of fantasy. Add a twist of love.

Although clumsy with women, botany professor Ross Barton possesses the quality of fearlessness when confronting danger. Relieved to be escaping routine school work and a bad relationship for a field research trip, a strange woman and danger are the last of his expectations.

Jay, an awkward young woman unwilling to disclose her past, begins a solitary hike into the forest with a pet concealed in a box. She claims the pet is a cat.

Rumors are spreading about odd lights in the night skies of New England.

A flight instructor reports that the government quarantined an area of Vermont woods.

All trails intersect on The Field Trip.

Title: The Field Trip
Author: R.A. Andrade
Genre: Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Mystery & Thriller
Published: May 1, 2015
Publisher: Selladore Press
Rating: ♨♨♨ ( 3 cups - Mesmerizing, odd and bittersweet.)