Category: Book Reviews
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Review: The Spirit Well
Stephen R. Lawhead’s The Spirit Well is Book 3 in the Bright Empires series, and as predicted, it takes the whole series to a new level: it is here that its many storylines begin to come together, that its timelines coalesce, and that its themes truly emerge. Having read this installment, I predict that Bright…
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The Spirit Well: Of Time and Travel (CSFF Tour, Day 2)
Welcome to Day 2 of the CSFF Blog Tour for The Spirit Well, by Stephen R. Lawhead. It was a tale of time, travel, and trains … of unexpected detours, mysterious illnesses, and a search for the deeper meanings of life. And no, I’m not talking about Lawhead’s story; I’m talking about mine for the last…
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Review: The Unraveling of Wentwater
In the fourth installment of C.S. Lakin’s “Gates of Heaven” series of fairy tales, various powers cross, collide, create, and unravel—powers of love and jealousy, magic and knowledge, justice and compassion, music and stitching, and above all, of words. The Unraveling of Wentwater centers around Teralyn, a beautiful young woman with a mysterious past who—unknown…
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Night of the Living Dead Christian: A Review (CSFF Tour, Day 3)
Luther Martin is a werewolf. Not many people know it–his estranged father, a Lutheran minister, does; so do the wife and daughter he managed to run off in a fit of rage. But to the rest of the world, he’s just an ordinary man–the quiet little man next door. That is, until Matt Mikalatos, the…
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Review: The Realms Thereunder (CSFF Tour, Day 2)
Ross Lawhead is probably doomed (or blessed, however you want to look at it) to have his name linked to his father and sometime cowriter, Stephen R. Lawhead, in every review. Perils of having a famous father (well, famous in our little backwater genre, anyway). But Ross’s first solely penned novel, The Realms Thereunder, stands…
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Review: The Land of Darkness
The Land of Darkness is the third fairy tale in C.S. Lakin’s Gates of Heaven series, this time following the quest of a twelve-year-old girl named Jadiel and her unlikely companion, a woodworking apprentice who is obsessed with finding a legendary bridge. Driven out by her evil stepmother to find the eternal-youth-giving leaves of a…
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More About D. Barkley Briggs and Genre Expectations
So, I really spaced on the last CSFF Tour–totally forgot to write/post a third entry. This had nothing to do with the quality of the book and everything to do with me being in the midst of traveling. We were featuring D. Barkley Briggs’s Corus the Champion, which was a really great read. My one…
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Review: Corus the Champion (CSFF Tour, Day 2)
The Barlow brothers are not the first to cross between Earth and Karac Tor, two of the Creator’s Nine Worlds. But the crossing has positioned the boys, each of whom possesses a significant gift, to influence the future of the Hidden Lands. Hadyn, who has discovered the power in names; Ewan, whose music weaves magic…
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Review of Lawhead’s “The Bone House”
In The Bone House, Book 2 of the Bright Empires series, the race to recover the fabled Skin Map — once tattooed on the torso of the greatest traveler the multiverse has ever known, and rumoured to contain the greatest secret of all — is still on. Kit and Giles have escaped from the disease-ridden…
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The Monster in the Hollows: A Review (Day 3)
On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness is a whimsical adventure tale, funny, scary, inhabited by Fangs of Dang, crazy sock men, and genuine recipes for maggotloaf. North! Or Be Eaten, Book 2 of The Wingfeather Saga, is the classic journey story: a book of creatures, encounters, fascinating locales, and of course, coming…