Glass Across the Sea
Realms of Allumeria: Book 1
Framed through the metaphor of broken glass, Sara Ella’s lush fantasy novel Glass Across the Sea is a breathtaking story of love and redemption.
Long ago in Allumeria, the benevolent Lamplighter gave humanity a miraculous lantern. Vying for power, four leaders, the Firefly, took the lantern’s various parts and created four Vestiges. When they realized the great power they wielded, they hid the Vestiges to protect humanity.
Parables about the Firefly once filled Noelle’s childhood with light. Now, with her mother’s memories lost to sudden illness and her glassmaker father withdrawn in grief, Noelle clings to them to as remnants of brighter days. But sinister forces seek to reunite the Vestiges, shattering her fragile calm.
Multiple storylines weave together: Noelle tends her mother while her father and her best friend, Prince Dante, journey to find a cure. On occasion, the narrative returns to the past as characters linger in memories, their nostalgia palpable and poignant. Antagonists like Lady Duval are presented as flawed, even cruel, but not irredeemable.
The symbolism-laced prose sparkles with wit and wisdom. The imagery of glass and the Glassmaker, one of the original Firefly, plays a central role. The lesson that cracked glass is beautiful because it captures light inside it symbolizes the complex reality of broken people struggling toward goodness. Elsewhere, Noelle reflects that Dante smells “like sunset and oakmoss,” and Christian imagery of an omniscient Lamplighter and a light on a hill blends with traditional fairy-tale elements like pumpkins, slippers, and a wicked stepmother–adjacent character. This thoughtful mix adds layers of motive and intrigue, moving the story toward its climax on the mystical Firefly Isle, where Noelle uncovers the extent of her powers.
A kind girl and a resolute prince find strength in each other in the exquisite fantasy novel Glass Across the Sea.
Reviewed by
Vivian Turnbull
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. No fee was paid by the publisher for this review. Foreword Reviews only recommends books that we love. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
