Virtual Heaven by Ann Lawrence is part of the Perfect Heros series and is the story of how Maggie O'Brien finds herself living in a virtual reality game with Kered the hero of the game a human reality guiding her way.

Maggie O'Brien has never tried a virtual reality game before and when she does she chooses to do so in a terrible storm.  When lightening hits the game Maggie suddenly finds herself within the realms of the game which are now her reality.
 

Kered is a warrior who knows nothing of the world Maggie has come from.  He comes across her at the beginning of his quest to bring peace to Tolemac.  On the advice of Nilrem, he takes Maggie with him on his quest believing that she is an escaped slave.

Together they travel through the world of Tolemac on their mission of peace and inevitably they fall in love along the way.  But Kered knows that he cannot share his life with Maggie.  To ensure peace he will have to lifemate with someone of the Council's choosing - and they will never choose a runaway slave.

Maggie has no real liking for the modern world and dreams of making her life with Kered but forces beyond her control tear her away from Kered and back to her own world.

Once home she begins a quest of her own to find the model for the Tolemac Wars computer game and hopefully a way back into the game and the arms of her soulmate.

Up until this point the story was clear and highly original - however once Maggie starts to piece together the mystery of what has happened the story starts to become rather confusing.  There are some things that just don't add up properly, for example one of the things about Maggie that caused a stir with the people of Tolemac is that her skin changes colour (blushes etc).  However if the final explanation of what has happened is to be believed this would not be unique to her.

The final part of the book, set once again in Tolemac, only served to confuse the reader more.  When Maggie first returned from Tolemac time had passed in the real world and everyone had been frantic with worry about where she could be.  However when she returns to Tolemac the second time it is before she had returned to the real world.

Also the hero's double life and his dreams do not seem to make sense.  Does he travel between the two worlds continually and if so why does no one notice he is missing?

In conclusion I think that this book was very original with a great idea for a story and left open for a sequel about Vad.  But while the story began as promising by the end it was starting to fall apart a little.  The ending also seemed very abrupt and I did not feel that all matters had been resolved between Kered and Maggie.  I felt that Kered could have done more to change the slavery in his society to give Maggie a place there than he did.  It seemed to me that at the end rather than face up to this issue they merely ran from this problem instead of facing it.  Perhaps this matter will be resolved in a sequel.
 

RATING : 
(if you need an explanation of the hearts ratings see my homepage)

Also by Ann Lawrence: Lord of the Mist, Lord of the Keep, Virtual Desire and Virtual Warrior

Links to  online stores

Visit Ann Lawrence's website.