Ledgends of Karac Tor by Dean Barkley Briggs: review

I was in a bookstore and on the $5 table was the first book in the series called The Legends of Karac Tor. The Book of Names. The description on the back intrigued me. Five dollars, hey it could be good. Good is an understatement, it sucked me in. It left me hanging and I did not even know it was a series! I guess i did not read the back very well. So, come to find out it was written a while back, but the stores don't carry the rest of the series. Who could just leave it there? I had to know the rest of the story. So, to Amazon I went. The next two were on Kindle so I read them fast, the fourth book came out mid February. I had to wait for it to go on Kindle. All were around the $5 price for Kindle version. Great buy. Now that I have finished the fourth book, I have to wait until Mr. Briggs finishes that fifth book. Grand finale. I can't wait.

The series consists of :
The Book of Names
Corus the Champion
The Song of Unmaking
The Raveged Rhelm
The War of Swords- coming

You can find them on Amazon
You can learn more about the author and the series at Hidden Lands website 

General overview:
The basic gist of the story is that things are not as they may seem. Maybe, this world, what we see is not all there is. Maybe, just maybe the histories of our world are interrelated more than we care to admit. Perhaps there are other worlds, what if they intersected, what if they interrelated. What if?
The Barlow family has recently lost mother/wife. They have also moved. Chasing a dream of their archaeologist father.
What happens next is nothing any of them expected, not even the dad, who has been researching this a long time. The boys one by one stumble into another world, become and intricate part of it. Dad follows. Their lives are changed, by hardship, grief, joy and promise. It is a clear and beautiful picture of what happens when we acknowledge God as the master story teller, the author of our unique stories, so distinct and so intertwined. He reveals, he heals, he makes all things new. This is a great story about our journey, our story, the hand of God. I also really like the example of gifts. God gives gifts to his children and the Barlow's and Odessa's clan have gifts too. I like that.

Ok, now the story line overview:
Reggie Barlow has recently lost his wife. He has four boys. All are in varying stages of grief. They move to a small town to a farm. While clearing a field of thorns a mystery unfolds. I won't spoil it for you.... but one by one the boys find themselves in another world, then dad too. This takes two books. The boys find that in the transition they each acquire a new gift that is very useful in the many quests and adventures they find themselves in. They make some really great new friends and find a new home and purpose in the land of Karac Tor. The boys and dad are intricate parts of the end time saga of this world or other dimension.

In the first book, The Book of Names, Hayden and Ewan must help to defeat an evil enchantress who desires to cast the world of Karac Tor into darkness and evil. Does she work alone or is there another behind her evil work? Will the boys accept the call or will they go home? Can they?

In the second book, Corus the Champion, the twins, Garret and Gabe have made it to the Hidden Lands. All four boys have a part to play. The enchantress is at work again and someone worse is rising up. A long lost champion must be retrieved from the clutches of evil before it is too late and a long sleeping King of another world must be awakened to stop the spread of evil and destruction. Will the boys rise to the challenge, even if it cost them greatly? Will they find a way to their father?

In the third book, The Song of Unmaking, dad finally makes his way through the portal and into Karac Tor, grief torn over his wife and the seeming loss of his four sons, he takes an entire book to find the strength to stand and be part of the story. Meanwhile his sons are off and running, adventure at every turn. A dark evil threatens Karac Tor. A machine, an army of unliving beasts. Will they find the strength in faith to do what they have been called to do?

In the fourth book, The Ravaged Rhelm, two plots unfold and intertwine in book one and book two of this novel. The song has unleashed a fury of destruction and change for those given to evil and those given to good. The rest must decide who leads them, will the king from another world hold them together? Will the humans turned monster destroy the people? Will the Barlow brothers even survive this? Lost and wandering each finds their own mission and works hard to follow the call. What of their father? He just disappeared along with one of the rulers and three of her children. The second half of the book follows them in their journey, a call to find the last voice of prophecy required for the end times of Karac Tor. This can't be the end for Reggie though as he finds he is falling in love again.  The book ends with some solidarity and and answer, much of the riddle the books are based on is solved. We await the end in book four, The War of Swords.

Critique:
Good: This series is a great read. Captivating and engaging. The author uses great words to challenge the vocabulary of the reader. I like that. He uses just enough description to lead us into our own imagination. Each book ends at such a place that there is sufficient closure but leaves you hanging so you just must read the next book. The characters are developed in such a keen and personal way that you really feel that you know them. I found myself laughing out loud, crying and clutching the book in stressful anticipation. I also really liked the historical and mythological aspects that Briggs brought to the book, makes one think about things a little deeper. I liked the mirroring of different cultures and language use (some of that needed some translation), it is refreshing to have a cast of characters who are multi cultural.  I also really appreciated the spiritual aspect of the book, showing us the story line God has for us is not always, well, rarely is, what we think it is. The artwork on the covers of these books are quality, eye catching works of art showing care and consideration for the story.

Not as good: Well, the only negative comments I have for this series is in regard to flow and editing. While the author really does the story, the editor helps to put things in an order that makes sense and I think either the editor was off or I got an unedited copy. The third book does not flow as well as the first two, leaving you hanging for more than one or two chapters with some of the characters as they go back and forth between what is happening in different parts of the story for longer chunks of time. Not too bad really, you still get a well rounded idea of what all the characters are up to and how they are feeling. The fourth book has a few more issues. I am guessing that something happened in the upload of the kindle version from the publisher and a previous edition was put out instead of the final edit. There were multiple editing errors in spelling and phrasing and actually once a totally different name was used for one of the twins. This did not bother me, but it could be a distraction for others, land is unprofessional. I am pretty sure this was an error on the part of the publisher and will be fixed soon. I just don't have that new official copy. The other issue with the book, it is an editing issue as well, is that it started out going back and forth between two parties (three of the brothers) then went and focused on one of them entirely for many chapters. In the first part of the book there was little mention of dad, who had suddenly disappeared at the end of the third book. Also Hayden was only mentioned in the first and last chapters and we have only an inkling of an idea what he has been up to, he was our main character in the first book and it seemed unfair to readers to leave us hanging with out so much as a minor chapter in between to let us know what he was up to. Ewan also seemed a secondary character and he was just re-developing his skill and I would have liked to see more of his personal struggle with this. We did get to know Gabe and Garret more in the first part of this book, especially Gabe. The second part of the book (and they are broken into book one and book two), we follow dad, Reggie, and Odessa, a ruler on Karac Tor, and three of her kids as they traverse worlds looking for the prophet to bring commencement to the end times on Karac Tor. While this was interesting it felt disjointed. It also brought a budding romance to the scene with characters we had not previously gotten to know and love, so it seemed awkward, though by the end I was certainly rooting for them and glad for the outcome. Looking forward to more closure to that in the last book. Considering that this book is for teens, the adult thought process of love and commitment, grief and hope are a bit out of context for the general audience. Not a problem for adult readers who will understand. Given that this is semi autobiographical in that the characters and relationships reflect real ones it is understandable, but not really what a teen audience is interested in. Now, if say, Hayden or Ewan had fallen for Odessa's daughter, now that is a good teen story, and would also have been unrelated to the real life characters. I prefer the back and forth of the first two stories and even the third. The second really felt like the two separate books it was broken up into, which does not fit the style of the first three books of a series. Usually a series sticks with the same format. I wanted to know more about the other characters and what they were doing and how they were developing in their new calling and life on this other world. I missed them in the second half, and somewhat in the first. Despite the critique here I still really enjoyed the book, I just thought the editing could have been better in how the story was put together in chapters, alternating rather than grouping. These issues did not take away from the message or quality storyline of the book, and that is a good thing since it is such a fabulous story.

I think that D Barkley Briggs is a very fine and noteworthy author who deserves a better editor or maybe a publisher who checks which edition they put out there for sale. 

Reader level: I would put this book at a Junior High/High School reading level. It uses big words which is great. It is a complicated plot line and it uses some logic and historical connections that are at a more advanced reading level.

Reader appropriateness: I would give this a PG rating for kids under JH because of the violence of battle and Reggie grappling with grief and love.

Alerts: I have no cautions for parents in this VERY clean book. No bad language, sexuality or convoluted witchcraft that could be confusing. The violence is aptly described for war scenes and is not over the top, but would not be appropriate for kids under 5th grade.


While this book has a good story line for both boys and girls it would be quite well received and related to by boys in particular.

 All in all, I loved this book series and can't wait for the final book to come out later this year.

Return to Exile, The Hunter Chronicles by EJ Patton

ONE BOY. UNTOLD ENEMIES. WEAPONS MADE OUT OF GARBAGE.

SERIOUSLY, WHAT COULD GO WRONG?

Eleven years ago, a band of ancient hunters battled an army of monsters in the town of Exile, and Phineas T. Pimiscule rescued his nephew, Sky, from a terrible evil. For eleven years, Sky Weathers has studied traps, puzzles, science, and the secret lore of the Hunters of Legend, believing it all a game. For eleven years, Sky's parents have dragged him across the U.S. and back again, moving from city to city in an effort to hide him from dark enemies while, unbeknownst to Sky, his uncle Phineas sacrificed everything to protect him.

For eleven years, Sky Weathers has known nothing of that day.

But on the eve of Sky's twelfth birthday and his family's long-awaited return to the town of Exile, Phineas disappears. To find him, Sky joins forces with a ragtag group of teenaged monster hunters who trap creatures using weapons made out of garbage and know even less than he does. But Phineas's disappearance is just the beginning; if Sky can't solve the riddles his uncle left for him in the next two days, Exile will burn. Sky's only hope for a solution lies in confronting the mysterious secrets he's denied for so long: Why did his family leave Exile on that day eleven years ago? What, exactly, has Phineas been preparing him for? And, the biggest mystery of all, who is Sky really and why does everyone want to kill him?!

Featuring lively characters, quirky humor, and an action-packed plot that covers the gamut of every monster you've never heard of, Return to Exile--a modern day fantasy adventure--is brimming with boy and girl appeal and is a gem for reluctant young readers and adults young and old. 

Artwork by Caldecott-honoree John Rocco, illustrator of Percy Jackson and the Olympians, The Heroes of Olympus, The Kane Chronicles, and the Caldecott-nominated Blackout.

Return to Exile is the first book in The Hunter Chronicles series.

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This was a good book. At first I was not really sold on it. A bit slow and vague, I felt lost and confused. But, that was how the character felt too. I think the author was just drawing me in to the character feelings and life. Background would have given away the story and the point of the book is to discover the background story. So, as I read and discovered more I really liked the characters and the plot. Monsters abound in this book and you grow to understand them more through Sky and his strange connection to them. In the end you are really rooting for him to win and for the kids to befriend him for real. No one this intriguing should be without a band of friends to solve dangerous riddles with.

This is not a hard book, easy to read. It is not overly graphic and the plot is not thick or complicated.  Monster alert with some minor gore. Riddles are the key to this book, so if riddles are your thing, this book is for you! I would suggest this book for an advanced younger reader in 2nd -4th grade. It is also good for a moderate reader in older elementary or middle school.

This Dark Endeavor by Kenneth Oppel

This Dark Endeavor, The Apprenticeship of Victor Frankenstien by Kenneth Oppel is a teen fiction book for sure. I would not recommend a child under the age of 13 to read this book.
This book is very well written. It crafts an intriguing story out of the ordinary, which is the most captivating. While there was nothing outrageously grabbing about this story it was more than a page turner. This being the case, I would pose some cautions about the book's content. It is dark, it is foreboding, it dabbles in dark magic of ancient times, not made up fantasy stuff. The choices of the characters are real and dramatic and not so unlike any of us if presented with the same set of circumstances. For this reason I recommend parental preview of this book and a good bit of caution. While this book does not have anything to do with vampires and the like, it is going to appeal more to those who are interested in that genera than those who liked Narnia, Fablehaven or even Harry Potter. This book ends like it is the begining of a series. I have not found info on any further writing of a series, so for now it stands alone. And maybe, despite it's being so well written, it should be left there.

Book Review: The Stowaway, by RA & Geno Salvatore

I have read several books in the last few weeks. I finished a great series and wanted something new. So, I picked up one of four different series.

I will review for you The Stowaway (first book in the series Stone of Tymora) written by RA and Geno Salvatore.  This is a great book and a very quick read as it is so captivating. I will be reading the rest of the series to dig up more of the story, which is very elusively left out to add to the mystique of the series and the intrigue of reading more.

Young Maimon is an orphan. Found and raised by mysterious people who are secretive about his origins. He wants to know more, but will learning these things really satisfy or will they just create more questions?  Just after his 12th birthday his guardian gives him a gift.  This item is bound to his soul in a magical way and this story begins to to open the mystery that Maimon seeks to solve. Who is he and why is he here? What is this gift and what is it's connection to him?

This book is full of action and mystery and plenty of magic and fantasy creatures, both good and bad (although the bad certainly do play a larger roll as of now against Maimon and his mystery). I have a feeling the whole series will be a must read if you get caught up in the story, it certainly ended with a lot left to know. Of course I think at the end of this book there was a lot left for Maimon to learn and we are following him. Like reading the first chapter in a great novel.... must get to the next one.

For kids who have trouble following a mixed plot line, this may not be the best read. The book is not typical or straightforward. It starts in the middle and Maimon tells what he knows of his story, which is not much, while flashing back to his current situation. This could be confusing for a kid who is not really good at reading mixed plot lines.

For this reason and for the depth of evil presented I would not recommend this for kids younger than 11 or 12. This is a good book for fantasy lovers. Geared toward 5th to 8th graders.

The Door Within by Wayne Thomas Batson

This is a review from my daughter who just read this book, reportedly one of the best she has read so far! This is the first book of a trilogy.

The Door Within, by Wayne Thomas Batson, is a fascinating story that you won't want to put down once you start reading. It is about a teenage boy named Aiden, who has to move with his family to his grandfather's house. While he is there, he finds something that sends him on a wild adventure. On this adventure, Aiden becomes a knight for a King, and has to face his fears. He also finds out that there is less than he thinks to complain about in life.
I enjoyed this book because it never got boring. Aiden always has something exciting going on in his quest. It is also a Christian book, and has characters that represent God and us. I think that this book would be enjoyed by both boys and girls or maybe even adults! If you like an action packed book that never gets boring, The Door Within is the book for you!
Barnes and Nobles 
Christian Bookstore

amazon