In Five Seconds Til Dark, the reader is taken on a journey through the eyes of Marcello Scott. Scott appears to be a normal mischievous teenager until a tragic accident claims the life of his best friend. As life seems to do ever-so-often, the tragedy took something from Scott, but it also blessed him with a gift that would take him some time to grasp. Scott realizes that he has the ability to freeze time around him for five seconds – leaving him to wander about freely while everything around him is paused. Scott’s father is a special forces veteran and CIA operative who has conditioned him to survive by any means necessary. Scott is taught from an early age, a theory of protecting the weak and oppressed. He has a sense of patriotism and heroism after being inspired by his father who is his lone parent. When Scott’s father mysteriously dies in the field, Scott spirals and ends up in jail where he’s thrust into a survival of the fittest environment and taps into his supernatural power to live. Scott survives prison and is reintroduced into the world, alone and equipped with a new mindset of judge, jury and executioner. Feeling bitter about his father’s passing, and his newfound enlightenment of the evils of man, he embarks on a life of hunting the wolves of the world and exacting retribution in a manner that he sees fit. Scott soon realizes that each time he uses his superpower, his health declines. With each bout of sickness increasing in intensity, Scott comes to the realization that playing God is slowly killing him. Scott begins to question all that makes sense in his world as things don’t seem to add up anymore. Paranoia sets in when trusted people around him start acting strange. The story if filled with twists around every corner and is an absolute page-turner.