Chanticleer Book Reviews

Tag: Chanticleer 5 Star Book Review

RAVENS ROOST by Maggie Bates – Children’s Nature Books, Illustrated Books, Children’s Friendship Books

Maggie Bates’s Ravens Roost is a Children’s book that explores the illustrated nighttime adventures of a woman with her friend, a small frog.

This story teaches children how to be curious about forest animals, even in the middle of a wind storm. Bates is new to writing Children’s books, and cares deeply for the natural world. Her rapport with animals likely inspired her debut tale.

Ravens Roost begins with a frog sitting on a roof, wondering where ravens go at night. The woman who lives in the house decides to help the frog follow his curiosity on an adventure. First, she climbs up a tree to watch ravens soar overhead. She admires the moon and notices the birds perching in her favorite tree. She climbs down and starts her trek along a forest path as night falls and the wind picks up. The woman tucks her frog friend into her pocket for safety. Along their journey, the frog and the woman share a special friendship.

The pair get trapped in the storm and the woman feels lost about where the ravens have gone.

Illustrations of the storm, the face of the wind, and the swirling background add depth and complexity to a pivotal part in the story. These images bring the story to life and sweep the reader up in their tale.

Ravens Roost is imaginative and observant of the world, making it a good choice for building vocabulary with a youngster.

This story’s lessons come in elegant prose. After reading of the author’s love and respect for nature at the end of the book, the parallels between the lead character and the author become apparent. Some beautiful ideas from Ravens Roost are realized by letting the wind carry us away, admiring numerous ravens on a perch, or protecting a frog from harm during a storm. Maggie Bates teaches children to be curious about animals, and the world we share with them.

Although the woman and frog are different in many ways, their ability to coexist is a valuable lesson.

In the end, if we do not stop to admire the natural beauty that surrounds us, we are overlooking unlikely friendships that may form, such as a woman with a frog. Bates reminds us that nature is a sacred space in her debut tale, and this story is paramount to us appreciating nature at any age.

July 1, 2022
MORAL FIBRE: A Bomber Pilot’s Story by Helena P. Schrader – Historical Fiction, WWII, Historical Aviation

In Moral Fibre: A Bomber Pilot’s Story, Helena P. Schrader takes readers to 1943 England, where deeply held values of honor and bravery mingle with the importance of one’s place in society. It was a time and place where failures of the former could shatter the latter and change a man’s life forever.

Within this psychological landscape, the reader is led to wonder, in the case of RAF pilot Christopher “Kit” Moran, will the war break him?

With thirty-six missions under his belt and as a decorated veteran, Kit suddenly refuses to fly another mission. Although a shock to everyone who knows him, Kit has his reasons. The new assignment comes less than one day on solid ground and two hours of sleep since returning from his most recent bombing sortie over Berlin. In itself a harrowing experience, the mission ended with his best friend, the plane’s skipper, being mortally injured and ultimately dying. The RAF hierarch deems Kit LMF (Lacking Moral Fibre) – a term introduced in 1940 to address those who refused to fly without having a verifiable medical reason. He is sent to a diagnostic center and examined by a psychiatrist.

The psychiatrist understands. Kit is not insane nor lacking in moral fibre. He was simply “wiped out.”

So Kit is declared capable and fit for duty and given the opportunity to train as a pilot. This outcome was a far cry from what he, an experienced flight engineer, expected after the incident that sent his career off track.

The novel really takes off in 1944 when, after completing pilot training in South Africa, Kit returns to England for the final stages of training and ultimately a return to operations. Now he must put his experience and training into practice while sublimating his lingering self-doubt and anxiety about his own resilience. Should he fail, people will die, and his dreams will die with him.

What ensues takes the reader into the English psyche of that time, tapping the depths of human emotions, holding them up to the light, and revealing their concomitant beauty and ugliness in times of fear and crises.

Before the war is over for Kit, he finds his inner strength, finds love, and learns the true meaning of sacrifice.

Meticulously researched and skillfully written, Schrader’s Moral Fibre steps off the pages and comes to life. Her nuanced characters and authentic dialogue also provide a glimpse of Britain’s stratified class-conscious culture during the WWII era.

Schrader picks a critical period during WWII for the setting and, in so doing, educates today’s readers about the horrors of a war that was and what it takes to save a nation – and perhaps the free world.

In Moral Fibre: A Bomber Pilot’s Story, Helena P. Schrader again reaffirms George Santanya’s position, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

June 29, 2022
EDGE: Turning Adversity into Advantage by Laura Huang – Business Motivation, Success Self-Help, Personal Transformation

Edge: Turning Adversity into Advantage by Laura Huang is a valuable mixture of business strategy, science, and examples, all directed to help readers develop their unique skills and strengths.

Author Laura Huang takes readers through her own journey to becoming an award-winning Harvard Business School professor. Along with real-world examples of both successful entrepreneurs and up-and-coming business students, she lays out a four-part guide on how to create your personal edge.

Creating your own edge is essential to getting ahead in life no matter who someone is or where they come from. Huang herself is a child of immigrants and was one of a few female engineering students at her university. She had to navigate her own specific challenges, figuring out what worked for her and what did not.

Instead of being in business to invent or promote the next big thing, Huang is in the business world for its rich research opportunities.

In Edge: Turning Adversity into Advantage, Huang will take readers through her process: Enrich, Delight, Guide, and put in Effort, to create their special edge. Huang reiterates throughout her book that anyone can have an edge; they can use who they are and whatever adversity they have faced to their advantage in not just business, but in their everyday life.

Huang uses her research expertise to give relevant sociological, philosophical, and business contexts to each section of the book.

Edge: Turning Adversity into Advantage is not about gaming the system to get ahead in business, and Huang stresses that there is not one method to follow. She presents her research and gives examples of how to gain an edge in ways that can create new opportunities for you.

Along with all the examples and stories, this book follows its own advice to Enrich, Delight, Guide, and put in the Effort. Edge: Turning Adversity into Advantage is at the same time enlightening, engaging, and truly a wake-up call to take charge of the growth of your life.

Edge: Turning Adversity into Advantage won Grand Prize in the 2020 CIBA Harvey Chute Book Awards for Business & Enterprise Non-Fiction.

June 22, 2022
ELI’S REDEMPTION by Paul Attaway – Financial Thrillers, Small Town Mysteries, Suspense

When Eli Atkin’s mother betrays him in his girlfriend’s murder trial, he has no choice but to flee his home. He must find a way to survive, ultimately clear his name, and emerge transformed in Paul Attaway’s novel, Eli’s Redemption.

When life corners you, what choice do you have? On the brink of his high school graduation and a potential major league baseball career, Eli Atkins is framed for the brutal murder of his beloved girlfriend. His alibi hinges on the honest testimony of his mother, but instead she shocks him with a cruel, ruthless lie. Devastated and terrified, Eli takes his chance and runs away, fast. Alone, grieving, and confused, where can this troubled young man turn? He has to fight for his freedom and reputation, despite the impacts on others’ lives.

In the first book of the series, Blood in the Low Country, Eli escapes dangerous accusations, and the warrant for his arrest. We never learn where he goes, until now.

The thrilling tale behind that mystery mixes aspirations of hope with a dire tension. Once again the unknown may swoop in and create circumstances that will bury Eli forever. At the risk of facing arrest themselves for helping an escaping suspect charged with murder, surprising people step in for the sake of their friend. Eli makes it safely to the Caribbean. He hides from his old life and the law that pursues him, assuming a new identity. Though he escapes, he also leaves behind everything he loved. Eli grieves the loss of his girlfriend, his family, and the future he had planned for himself. All that has dissolved into thin air.

Anxious for the efforts of his friends back home to prove his innocence, Eli waits. Weeks turn into months and then years.

While others work on his behalf, digging up clues and following leads, the rhythm of life in the Caribbean captivates Eli. He discovers some joy in his work, in those people around him, and in new interests. The devoted baseball player tries his hand at a new game, golf. He develops enviable expertise. When he least expects to, he meets someone special, and irresistible. Cautiously, he even opens the door to the possibility of a new love.

Similar to the game of golf, life sometimes leaves players out of bounds, or deep in a sand trap. Not everyone wins with a hole in one. Eli finds delights in the Caribbean, but also dangers. When he has the chance to clear his name and reconcile with his old life, will he be tripped up again by the deceptions of his new life? Is Eli’s Redemption just one more broken dream? He fears that may be par for the course for his future. And yet, Eli drives forward and finds out.

Author Paul Attaway satisfies readers’ curiosity about Eli’s escape and his experiences as he grows from a scared teenager into an exiled man.

Artistically, the author paints the picture of this young man’s emotional journey. Along with Eli, the reader cringes with fears, thrills at joys, grieves at loss, and is surprised by new trouble and danger. Tension builds, keeping our interest and concern as Eli, and those around him, are tested by trials and tribulations. While we follow Eli’s adventures, we’re also treated to glimpses into the lives of those he left behind. How can they move forward without Eli, immersed in all the secrets that drove him away? Readers will be in Eli’s corner when he finally returns home and faces his ultimate test, his family. Reconciliation is easier said than done.

June 17, 2022
The BOY WHO WROTE POETRY by Judy Taylor – Poetry, Family Memoirs, Artist Biographies

The Boy Who Wrote Poetry is a heartwarming and inspirational work about Mark Ford, a promising young poet and writer who died a tragic and premature death at the age of eighteen. This collection is the poetry he left behind.

Judy Taylor, Mark’s sister and the author of the book, tells the story of her brother’s short life and their family, the circumstances in which he grew up, and how he began to express his creativity at a very young age. The examples of Mark’s poetry and general writings that the author presents are remarkable and moving. Considering the tender age at which Mark wrote the poetry, the sophistication and insight revealed in the work are astonishing.

Despite the sometimes perplexing narration and lack of photograph captions, leading to confusion about who’s who in the images presented, the pictures of the family growing throughout the years give a touching clue to the close-knit family and the seven children, of whom Mark was the eldest and the author, his sister Judy, was the youngest. The photos, even without clarity on which child is which (the glasses at least make clear which is Mark Ford), make for warm reminiscences and give a clue to how the young poet lived and grew.

What is of particular note is the degree to which the self-awareness is evident in Mark’s work. “Please excuse the misspelled words,” he requests in the introduction to a collection of his poetry. “It was meaning, not grammar I strove (and am still striving) for.”

There are glimpses of what kind of storyteller that Mark would have developed into with offerings like “What do you use/To keep out the night? Try to conceal/Your delicate fright. Don’t call for help/For nothing is worse/Than wounded dignity/Innerness unhorsed.” A little trepidation, a little humor.

Mark, according to the author, went through phases including fantasy (in particular The Lord of the Rings trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien) and Bob Dylan’s work, and produced imagery that reflects the prose of the time:

What changes in a day?
What makes the sky so grey?
What takes the wind and makes it so alone?
What breaks the earth and scatters senseless stone?
On the horizon, the bare brown
Horizon, glowing with the last of life,
Glowing with the last of life.
What changes in a week?
What makes it easier to speak
The words I should have said but could not say
And now that day has joined the past days
Littered in a pile.
A useless pile of days.
A useless pile of days.
A lightning tears the sky in two.
Another moment it is through
And sky is whole.
Beating down your wincing brow
The rains betray your wisdom now.
Alone the storm.
You, your trials, disappear
For who will equal or compare
Its tear-born ire?
The weeping storm screams out aloud.
Its tears are naked, bare and proud,
Anew for each departed leaf.
The sky lays down and cries its grief.

Not only that, more than a bit of insight amid the darkness, in his final poem before his death:

Guilt drops hawklike on suspecting man
And plummets toward his silent, secret sin.
The soul is pierced in vain; no talon can
Remove the stain when it is held within.
The grace of God, when sought, can dull
The beak and claws of guilt. A man can pray
And ease the burden in a heart too full
To bear, although the pangs of failure stay;
For God is God above us all and draws
Us up to Him, but man is man and shall
Persist in needing comrades in the pause
Between the ultimate rise and the ultimate fall.
God’s gifts uplift, but cannot be compared
In saving strength to sadness equally shared.

Mark Ford’s poetry and creative writing, the focus of the piece, were truly outstanding, and his early demise heartbreaking.

June 13, 2022
SCROOGE and CRATCHIT DETECTIVES: The Dark Malevolence by Curt Locklear – Victorian Mystery, Victorian Cozy, Holiday Fiction
Curt Locklear’s The Dark Malevolence, book 2 in the Scrooge and Cratchit: Detectives series is an immersive Victorian murder mystery that sets readers firmly in the era alongside two of our favorite characters from the most famous novelist of its time, Charles Dickens.

Once again Locklear hits the high notes of Dickens and Doyle as he paints good old London town in the days before electricity and public sanitation. We follow our heroes, Scrooge, Cratchit, and Lockie, as they put their talents to work to solve not one, but four mysteries.

With a cast straight out of the classics, Locklear references Shakespeare as well as developing his “something is afoot” mystery. Upon taking the case of Mrs. Evangeline Peabody’s missing husband, the mystery soon becomes a murder case. The husband is found dead and a local police officer, or “Metropolitan,” is found mauled to death. Mystery-one leads to murders one and two, and each event leads readers to another crime, another suspect, and another victim.

He does not shy away from the economic classes fraught with double standards, scandals, and social injustice. The story unfolds in upholding the Victorian penchant for complicated plots and stories and along with timeless investigative techniques as used by Sherlock Holmes. A compelling combination for lovers of classic mysteries.

The historical period comes to life under the author’s deft crafting, and his characters fill the pages with high-stakes chases, shootouts, brawls, and mad dashes to safety.

Lockie uses skills from his former life along with his knowledge of the criminal mind to help uncover leads his upstanding colleagues wouldn’t even recognize. Scrooge, a man trying to mend his uncharitable ways, uses his quick wit and abilities to judge character as they pursue one lead after another, and Cratchit uses his benevolent nature to bring all the talents together to help solve the crimes.

Locklear introduces complication after complication and with it come characters from Grimm’s fairytales, namely Snow, alluding to Snow White, and her seduction and disappearance from her home with a family of little people who will do everything in their power to save her.

Buckle up – there’s more!

Add in a crime ring and new medical technology for Victorian times, and you have the elements for the darkly compelling work. Locklear creates a sinister world where evil reigns in the back streets and alleys, and the success of our heroes is uncertain.

Locklear has done his research and the glossary of terms at the end of the book comes in handy for the language and terms used by the characters. The mystery builds and builds even as one murder is solved, and another begins.

Shining a light on issues of the time, such as human trafficking, illegal human experimentation, and hypnotism – a very popular medium for the Victorian era – Locklear kept this reader immersed and turning the pages of this well-crafted murder novel.

The characters become embroiled in and expose these issues. At times we cringe, but Locklear always holds out hope and optimism, even when Cratchit is afraid to sleep, and Scrooge dreads the wee hours of the night when Marley pays his visits.

The complex subplots create tension and intrigue as we follow our heroes through the dark seamy alleys and warehouses of London to solve murder and mystery.

The historical aspects lend a wonderful period flare, and the suspense and plot twists keep the tension high from beginning to end. Locklear’s Victorian mystery, a four caper in one book, has Lockie, Scrooge, and Cratchit rushing to solve each murder and put bad guys behind bars, but can they catch them all? The Dark Malevolence is a page-turner extraordinaire, a captivating read from beginning to end, and one we highly recommend.
June 10, 2022
HEALING OUT LOUD: How to Embrace God’s Love When You Don’t Like Yourself by Sandi Brown & Michelle Caulk, PhD, LPC – Christian Counseling, Memoirs, Friendship

Two writers – friends, and former counselor and client – combine forces to create Healing Out Loud, a dynamic book aimed at understanding and overcoming the deficits that life hands us.

Sandi Brown, a radio personality with more grit than she realizes, seeks professional help. Michelle Caulk’s therapeutic methodology perfectly suits this case. The two offer examples of wishing for and finding true mental health through the development of a remarkable communicative relationship.

Each chapter of the pair’s psychological explorations begins with a memory from Sandi, accompanied by her expanded view of incidents from childhood and beyond. These ruminations are then matched by counselor Michelle’s personal grasp of Sandi’s specific dilemmas, and well-constructed guidelines for a healing process that readers can incorporate into their own lives. Sandi, grappling with low self-esteem, was traumatized as a child when her father left her mother and brother, loudly and finally, with no explanation.

This was followed by her mother’s marriage to a gruff and unloving stepfather who abused the little girl starting when she was six.

As Sandi opens up to Michelle about this period of her life, she remembers once refusing to properly excuse herself from the supper table, simply sitting there for a protracted period in silent defiance. To this, Michelle declares that Sandi was “a fighter,” and this becomes a working theme in their therapy sessions as Sandi’s emotional grasp expands.

She begins to realize she can confront and overcome her long held shame; she has a voice and she is loved, not only by those in her current life, but by God, who has a plan for her success. At each stage of her self-discovery, Sandi is offered another step in “The Unpacking Process with Dr. Michelle.” The day Sandi buys make-up is a notable turning point, since previously she considered herself too unattractive to draw undue attention to her features.

Sandi and Michelle, whose relationship gradually enters the realm of friendship as both reveal their deepest aspirations, have constructed this vibrant manual to help others take on the task of self-healing.

Part of the process, as is made clear in a variety of ways, is to speak out and invite others to share their own inner doubts and fears. The writing is both educated and plain, emphasizing their shared drive for outreach and their common Christian outlook. Useful metaphors include taking the plunge off a high diving board, throwing unwanted feelings off a bridge, and Sandi’s youthful memory – expanded now to include her greater understanding – of being a kite, learning to fly past her problems, accept life’s inevitable scars, and share her experiences with other battered flyers.

Healing Out Loud is a most unusual literary experiment that combines a woman’s need to find a better path and greater fortitude, and another woman’s wish to help her see that the positive qualities she seeks already dwell within her. The resulting work has the power to evoke threads of memory and longing for improvement among its readers and can doubtless serve in both individual and group contexts.

June 8, 2022
BLOOD In The LOW COUNTRY by Paul Attaway – Religious Mysteries, Action & Adventure Literary Fiction, Southern Literary Sagas

Are the sins of the father destined to burden the children? Or is it the sins of the mother that create a child’s worst nightmare? Find out in Paul Attaway’s riveting Southern mystery, Blood in the Low Country (The Atkins Family Saga).

Rose Atkins is weighed down by a lifetime of desperate secrets. The mother of two teenage sons and wife to a lawyer, Monty, Rose goes to great lengths to keep her past hidden. Her attempts to conceal all details about this sordid history may bury both of her sons. With the passage of time, secrets become harder and harder to keep. The pressure builds and leads to cracks in the foundation that Rose carefully manufactured for her life. If she falls through, it may be her family that will pay the heaviest price.

Rose’s brutal efforts to maintain a blissful family illusion is designed so she will be admired by all in the community.

Behind closed doors their dysfunctional home life erupts. Rose idolizes her younger son, Walker and loathes her older son, Eli. Both extremes are destructive. Her misguided actions reflect her feelings about their different fathers.

Despite their mother’s constant interference, sons Eli and Walker develop a close bond. They work to brighten their futures, creating their own secrets as they try to live undetected by their mother’s intrusive radar. At the same time, they can’t help but engage in a never-ending series of individual attempts to earn love from Rose and Monty. All their efforts end in disappointment. Rose and Monty always want more.

The boys become discouraged and distraught by the pressure of their parents’ requirements of acceptance – of earning their love. Why does love have strings attached? Eli and Walker are caught in a sad cycle. If only Monty could find a way to unite the family, but he is mystified by his wife’s actions and unsure what he can do.

Catastrophe strikes when Eli’s girlfriend, Kimberly is found murdered.

Last seen in an argument with Eli, the boy becomes the prime suspect in her murder. Eli declares his innocence and naturally seeks support from his mother. She coldly turns her back on him. Abandoned, can her desperate son find justice on his own?

The shock of this tragedy has forever altered the lives of Eli, Walker, his parents, and all those in Kimberly’s family. In the meantime, there is a killer on the loose who is emboldened knowing that all accusing eyes are distracted by Eli.

Author Paul Attaway creates intriguing characters with complex interrelationships, presented in such a realistic way readers will find it difficult to put the book down.

The characters’ reactions to their situations as the plot moves forward is compelling and heartbreaking. In short, those who enjoy their Southern Mysteries with an intricate plot and highly relatable characters will line up for more. Blood in the Low Country is one mystery we highly recommend.

Author Paul Attaway is a master at showing a series of events from such varying characters’ perspectives. It’s so intriguing to discover the motives and actions of the different personalities when confronted by the same events. The writing is artfully paced, stimulating the reader with a constant curiosity of what can happen next.

These characters, often at cross purposes, drive circumstances forward to an inevitable, explosive conclusion. The author ignites this climax by skillfully revealing surprise twists. While presenting this enticing drama, the story also contains a thrilling mystery and hunt for a killer. Readers follow the clues as they are uncovered, finding themselves caught up in the case and cheering for the families, and for justice. But, once Blood in the Low Country is spilled, can secrets be forgiven, love triumph, and trust be restored?

June 6, 2022
The BIBLE for ME: Bible Stories and Prayers by Mike Nawrocki and Amy Parker – Christian Children’s Books, Christian Children’s Early Readers Books, Children’s Devotional Christianity Books

The Bible for Me: Bible Stories and Prayers by authors Mike Nawrocki and Amy Parker is a brightly illustrated, highly readable and listenable collection of fifty stories drawn from the Holy Bible and specifically geared for children of all ages.

The collection moves through the Bible from Old to New Testaments, with twenty-five stories from each. In the first half readers will see, through simple words and vivid pictures styled to the text by artist Taylor Thompson, how the universe was created, and the Jewish people were chosen to carry God’s word throughout the known world in their time. The language is frank and will appeal to young readers, as we learn for example, how in the Garden of Eden “Adam and Eve Mess Up.”

In “Three Friends in the Hot Seat” we see how three spiritual heroes – Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego – are punished by King Nebuchadnezzar for refusing to worship idols; they are thrown into a fire but are saved by an angel of the Lord.

The special place of girls and woman is extolled, with the account of Esther, “The Girl Who Saved Her People,” and later through the story of young Mary, and her role in God’s plan as the mother of Jesus. Thorny issues such as Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his own son for God are treated with wisdom and appropriate tact, as the authors follow the story with an ameliorating prayer in which the child reader may ask God “to put You first and to be willing to give up even our favorite things to follow you.”

With the advent of Jesus in the book’s second segment, the traditional biblical stories are again accompanied by these prayers that help to make the meanings clearer. When Jesus is tempted by Satan, the prayer forthrightly thanks God “for showing us how to deal with the devil.”

Both composers of these short, educational offerings have a background in writing and producing: Parker has authored more than sixty Christian-themed children’s books, and writer Nawrocki works in film and other media to provide Bible-based allegorical texts for youthful readers, watchers, and listeners, and of course was one half of the well-loved Veggie Tales creative team. Together with Thompson, whose pictorial interpretations range from puckish to powerful to awe-inspiring, a wide-ranging panorama of Christian history springs to life to help youngsters develop a grasp of higher truths.

The authors begin by informing readers (and those who may read to them) that the stories they have chosen are aimed at speaking directly to their audience. They conclude with a closing prayer and brief “sermon” to encourage young people to accept Jesus and his saving grace.

The Bible for Me by Nawrocki and Parker could be used in a Sunday school or other group context, as well as within a family, and may serve to inspire teachers, parents, and grandparents as well as their young listeners.

June 3, 2022
BLUE FLAME: Book 2 of the Daemon Collecting Series by Alison Levy – Fantasy, Supernatural, Adventure

Leda Morley has just discovered she stands between the world and total devastation in Alison Levy’s second book, Blue Flame.

As a gatekeeper, Leda is descended from a long line of women responsible for keeping Apep, a chaos daemon, from devouring the sun and spinning the world – at least the Notan dimension – into complete oblivion. After barely escaping the a terrifying journey to the world of Arcana, Leda has decided to learn everything she can about these alternate dimensions and the rules controlling them. Rachel Wilde, a collector in charge of sending defective daemons back home for repair, has agreed to allow Leda to shadow her on her job in order to collect as much data as possible. However, both Leda and Rachel get more than they bargain for when they investigate a market already familiar to Rachel.

Naji El Sayed, the young son of the owners, has accidentally brought a Djinn into the Notan world, and the creature is bent on revenge and attempting to murder Naji’s mother. Rachel worries she won’t be able to help the family at all until she finds help in an unlikely place, a formerly homeless oracle. Bach Chesterfield spent six months living under a bridge and raging against the images constantly bombarding him until Rachel rescued him and moved him into her house, but will this unlikely hero have the courage to step up before it’s too late?

Bach is truly a shining character in this novel. In this second installment of the series, the reader will see his backstory and his personality come forward.

Having spent the last six months living under a bridge with other homeless people, Bach is terrified of “normal” life. He knows it would be incredibly easy to slip back into his previous life of obliviousness, but he refuses to do that. With the help of Simon Morley, Leda’s brother, he is painstakingly attempting to rebuild his shattered existence and overwhelmed mind from the wealthy parents who disowned him to the partner who kept his belongings and moved on.

Seeing the past, present, and future of most people and creatures he meets has left Bach consumed and imprisoned within his own gift, but his resiliency to retake his life is touching. Even though he knows it’s impossible, he would help every person on the planet if he could, and he insists on giving back to those who helped him along the way, going so far as to track down a fellow homeless man who acted as his protector and giving him the information he needs to find the daughter who desperately wants to find him.

When he must confront the Djinn, he finds a strength he never knew he possessed and even manages to bring forward the “humanity” within the being. Bach’s role in the plot cannot be undervalued and promises to be one of prominence within future installments.

Leda and Rachel present an intriguing dichotomy. The women share a few similarities, yet their differences really highlight the unique world-building within the novel.

The work of these women is one such area. While Leda loves learning about diverse cultures and has a voracious thirst for customs and language, she hates her job working for an administrator at a local museum. Her boss is lazy, often requiring her to perform his duties then complaining when the quality suffers following her near-death kidnapping and subsequent injury. She detests the harassment and sexualization she feels within her workplace and longs for the kind of world where that would never happen – a world like Arcana.

In Rachel’s matriarchal society, a woman would never experience such an insult. She has a much more equalized workplace, but she, unlike Leda, has no love for what she does. Five years into her eight-year length of service, Rachel wants out. She dreams of returning to her family’s farm. Though she answers Leda’s myriad questions, she’s often confused by Leda’s conflicting emotions so different from her own background.

Faith is, perhaps, the biggest and most significant difference. Leda struggles to reconcile her Christian upbringing where demons and angels hold supernatural posts with Rachel’s dogmatic practical explanation of inter-dimensional creatures malfunctioning on Earth’s plane. Though she sees the daemon in action, she cannot believe the stories she remembers so fondly are make-believe. Rachel cannot see them as anything but broken creatures needing help. However, while their discrepancies leave Leda with questions, her faith, interestingly, doesn’t diminish.

The Daemon Collecting Series is a great spin on an age-old stereotype. It’s fun, engaging characters will create a fantastical journey without leaving the very world surrounding us.

May 23, 2022