The book, Raven's Ladder by Jeffrey Overstreet is at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1400074673
Check it out.
While you are at it, take a look at the author's website: http://lookingcloser.org/category/journal/
In conjunction with the CSFF Blog Tour, I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.
Raven's Ladder is the third book in The Auralia Thread. Overstreet is writing the fourth and final volume to the series, now. The first two volumes are Auralia's Colors and Cyndere's Midnight. The books tells of a dark world with no colors, and the child who knows the Keeper and the child fills the world with color. In this third book, she has grown older and colors are revealed through another child by Auralia creation. King Cal-Raven seeks a place to move his kingdom and his people after their dwellings are destroyed.
The author is aware of the flaws of this book, he refers to them himself, in the story. He asks if we have the patience to hear a story who has too much description and wanders off it course. I have to say I did not always have that much patience, I got bogged now in the lack of story and the inability of the Raven to act. Yet, it added to his point of discouragement.
The author states, "Raven's Ladder is about preserving a vision of hope through doubt, disappointment, distration and disaster." One thing this author does which all fantasy readers look for is he created a world filled with characters, and to walk in this world with the many characters is the books charm.
Sometimes you wonder if the author is making social commentary which is too thinly disquised. I found if I laid the book now, I was in no hurry to pick it up, so it never grabbed me, and made me read to the end. I struggle with getting through this book. I felt it lack a thread to hold it all together, and sometimes you don't need three modifiers for a noun.
Check out these other reviews:
Brandon Barr Rachel Briard (BooksForLife)
Keanan Brand Beckie Burnham Melissa Carswell Valerie Comer CSFF Blog Tour Stacey Dale D. G. D. Davidson Shane Deal Jeff Draper April Erwin Ryan Heart Becky Jesse Cris Jesse Jason Joyner Julie Krystine Kercher Dawn King Rebecca LuElla Miller Nissa John W. Otte Donita K. Paul Crista Richey Chawna Schroeder Andrea Schultz James Somers Robert Treskillard Steve Trower Fred Warren Phyllis Wheeler KM WilsherLabels: author, book review, Christian, fantasy
April CSFF Blog Tour for George Bryan Polivka’s Blaggard’s Moon
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0736925376
Author's website: http://www.nearingvast.com/
See other reviews:
Brandon Barr Jennifer Bogart Keanan Brand Melissa Carswell Amy Cruson CSFF Blog Tour Stacey Dale D. G. D. Davidson Jeff Draper April Erwin Karina Fabian Alex Field Marcus Goodyear Todd Michael Greene Ryan Heart Timothy Hicks Cris Jesse Jason Joyner Kait Carol Keen Mike Lynch Magma Margaret Melissa Meeks Rebecca LuElla Miller Nissa John W. Otte Steve Rice Crista Richey Chawna Schroeder James Somers Rachel Starr Thomson Steve Trower Speculative Faith Jason Waguespack Fred Warren Phyllis Wheeler Jill Williamson With pirates in the news, here is a story told by a pirate as his life balances on a post over threatening waters filled with creature to devour him. He reviews the events before being left to die, and tries to learn to think creatively. He hopes to figure out how to save himself. Not realizing the act leading to his abandonment is the act on which his life is balanced. It determines his outcome, it leads to salvation or destruction. Another great read by George Bryan Polivka.
Among his Christian credentials for writing Christian adventure, is one that caught my eye of traveling to Europe to study after Francis Schaeffer at L'Abri Fellowship is Switzerland. An adventure I wished to make when I was in college, the closest I came was to devour Schaeffer's books. I am sure the experience not only deepened Polivka heart towards God but also his understanding.
God bless the writer and each of us in our own adventures even if we go no further then in the pages of our books.
Labels: author, book, Christian, fantasy
Hunter Brown and the Secret of the Shadow, by The Miller Brothers.
A Christian teen novel with Hunter Brown and his two high school friends faced with who and what to believe. The book starts by their attempt to stand up to the school bullies only to find themselves locked into a garbage dumpster. Their rescurer sends has them pick up a book for him at a local bookstore. Only to find latter he has disappeared and the bookstore has vanished too.
Hunter has a conversion type experience at the end of the book, faced with deciding to whom he owes his allegiance. The book is geared mostly to the male teen. Yet there is a group of three pre-teen who play supporting roles to Hunter, I would like to hear more of these three in relationship to Hunter for I found them a strong, supporing force.
Read and enjoy, then pass it on to your teen or pre-teen.
A book that is more like a travel through a new world, then just a plot and resolve the plot book. It leads you into a fantasy world and now, that you are established there and you have decided where to place your trust, you are ready to fight and defend the truth.
Labels: book review, Christian, fantasy
AURALIA'S COLORS
(WaterBrook Press September 4, 2007)
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1400072522
by Jeffrey Overstreet
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Jeffrey Overstreet lives in two worlds. By day, he writes about movies at LookingCloser.org and in notable publications like Christianity Today, Paste, and Image.
His adventures in cinema are chronicled in his book Through a Screen Darkly. By night, he composes new stories found in fictional worlds of his own. Living in Shoreline, Washington, with his wife, Anne, a poet, he is a senior staff writer for Response Magazine at Seattle Pacific University.
Auralia’s Colors is his first novel. He is now hard at work on many new stories, including three more strands of The Auralia Thread.
ABOUT THE BOOK:
As a baby, she was found in a footprint.
As a girl, she was raised by thieves in a wilderness where savages lurk.
As a young woman, she will risk her life to save the world with the only secret she knows.
When thieves find an abandoned child lying in a monster’s footprint, they have no idea that their wilderness discovery will change the course of history.
Cloaked in mystery, Auralia grows up among criminals outside the walls of House Abascar, where vicious beastmen lurk in shadow. There, she discovers an unsettling–and forbidden–talent for crafting colors that enchant all who behold them, including Abascar’s hard-hearted king, an exiled wizard, and a prince who keeps dangerous secrets.
Auralia’s gift opens doors from the palace to the dungeons, setting the stage for violent and miraculous change in the great houses of the Expanse.
Auralia’s Colors weaves literary fantasy together with poetic prose, a suspenseful plot, adrenaline-rush action, and unpredictable characters sure to enthrall ambitious imaginations.
Visit the Website especially created for the book, Auralia's Colors. On the site, you can read the first chapter and listen to jeffrey's introduction of the book, plus a lit more!
Auralia’s Colors: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/asin/1400072522
Book web site: http://lookingcloser.org/auralia/default.htm
Featured author, Jeffrey Overstreet
Author blog, Looking Closer Journal: http://lookingcloser.wordpress.com/
Read reviews and comments at the following blogs:
Brandon Barr Jim Black Justin Boyer Grace Bridges Jackie Castle Carol Bruce Collett Valerie Comer CSFF Blog Tour D. G. D. Davidson Chris Deanne Jeff Draper April Erwin Marcus Goodyear Andrea Graham Jill Hart Katie Hart Timothy Hicks Heather R. Hunt Becca Johnson Jason Joyner Kait Karen Carol Keen Mike Lynch Margaret Rachel Marks Shannon McNear Melissa Meeks Rebecca LuElla Miller Mirtika or
Mir's Here Pamela Morrisson Eve Nielsen John W. Otte John Ottinger Deena Peterson Rachelle Steve Rice Cheryl Russel Ashley Rutherford Hanna Sandvig Chawna Schroeder James Somers Rachelle Sperling Donna Swanson Steve Trower Speculative Faith Jason Waguespac Laura Williams Timothy WiseLabels: author, book, Christian, fantasy
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