The Golden Vial - a book review

Loved it, loved it so much.

Book 3 in the Legends of the Realm series. I read book 1 in early 2015 and book 2 in early 2016.

I highly recommend you read Thomas Locke's answer to this question. Open this link in a new tab so you don't loose the rest of my review... come back and finish reading here when you are done...  Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?  His most recent book happens to be "The Golden Vial".  His answer is the reason why he has had so much success as a writer and especially with his fantasy/Christian fiction under his pseudonym. Oh, My! I love his writing.

Well thought out, well planned. Extremely well written. Creative. Like nothing else I have ever read. Drawing you in. Making the book impossible to put down.

This book continues the series, but starts with an unknown main character, someone knew on the scene. Dally works for the mayor and his wife in the village of Honor. She lost her family in a fire and came to live with the mayor. His wife Krim, however, is impossible to work for. Dally has no choice, she has no family, no money and no where else to go, so she endures the job the best she can and spends a lot of time with the wolfhounds the mayor raises.

I know this series well enough to expect some interesting abilities from the characters in the book. Dally has a secret gift, she can reach out to the wolfhounds and smell what they smell and sense what they sense. She can reach out from her spot in the holding pen with the dogs and tell what is going on in the village. She has also been having dreams, no not really dreams, visitations. She knew Shona was real and that she was coming to Honor. The town had been cut off from the world for almost 2 years. The arrival of an army is alarming and there is not much time, Shona and the army arrive at dawn.

Lady Edlyn, the new Mistress of the Long Hall of the Three Valleys tests Dally's abilities. First she test her with the dogs, she passes that quickly. Then they look for a sign.
     "Oh, you mean the candles." (skip down the page)
     "Dally went on, 'Then they speak to me.'
     Both mages froze. 'I'm sorry. They speak?' Edlyn asked.
     'They did. Before these dogs came. Not in words. But...' Dally looked fro one face to the other. 'Did I do something wrong?'
     'Lass, let me assure you of this one thing. Whatever events that have filled you with such fear are now behind you.'
     Something broke within Dally. She could no more hold back the tears than stop her own breath."   (pg 30)
     "'Did I draw the beast that killed my family?'
     'If you will please straighten up and look at me, I will answer you. Thank you. Dally, I will never lie to you. Even when the truth is at its most painful, you can trust me to be both direct and honest. The answer is, your talents are so remarkable it is possible they were noticeable to our foes. But I very much doubt this. Latent powers are invisible to even our most sensitive adepts." (pg 31)

So, now we find the basic plot of this book. The beasts have been tormenting the surrounding countryside and towns. They are a fierce enemy. The new mistress has come with her army to protect the citizens. Dally and her gifts will have a part in the upcoming battles. But there is more. Hyam, our hero from books one and two, has been struck by a terrible illness and cannot be awakened. Who will help them save him? Does Dally with her untrained talents and powers have what it takes to help the army defeat these gigantic beasts? Will the mages find out what is wrong with Hyam? Can they save him before it is to late?

Battles, powers, gifts, mages, wolfhounds and terrible beasts. Could anything be worse? Yes, but I won't tell you what you will have to read the book to find out the details.

     "Who was she really? What did she seek to do with her life? Her past had been stripped away, the prison of her former existence gone. She was free, and yet Dally did not know what the word even meant. What course did she wish to chart for herself? She found herself struggling not to weep, though many of those gathered here bore tear-streaked faces. She was wracked by a sorrow that made no sense. She had a purpose. She had gifts. Her life held meaning. Should she not be thrilled? Where was the joy?
     In the silent, sunlit warmth, Dally realized she had no idea what she wanted. The confusion was as powerful as guilt, though she had done nothing wrong. She felt herself being reshaped by the questions as though images that had not yet appeared required her to ask what she had spent years fleeing.
     Worst of all was the simple fact that she did not even know her own name." (pg 102-103

Purpose. We all seek a purpose for our lives. Why was I put here, in this time and space? What does God want of me? This we, like Dally, seek to find. Purpose for our lives.

   "The longer she focused upon this heart's light, the clearer Dally saw beyond her trapped state. For the first time she glimpsed a realization all her own, a purpose large enough to justify the hard life she had known. Here was an objection so gigantic, it made her years of lonely toil not just bearable, but necessary.
    She had never given up. Wept, yes. Ached and sobbed and experienced hardship, most certainly.
     All for this moment." (pg 178)

What moment... I can't tell you that it would give away

Some day I hope to find the same thing Dally did. A purpose for all my suffering... all my families suffering. In the meantime I will continue on. I will not give up. I have wept, many times. I am sure I will weep again. I have ached and sobbed like Dally, but I have not given up, and I will not give up now. It may be I don't know why things happened until heaven. Until then I will keep on and try to serve my Lord, my family and my community.

Do you want to know what happens to Dally? Do they save Hyam? Read and find out.
I highly recommend this book and if you haven't read the series start with book one. This series is great. I am pretty sure I heard that book four is on the way soon.

Note: I was sent this book for free for me to review. My thoughts and review are honest and not influenced by the fact that I received the book for free.

Ultimate Popsugar Reading Challenge prompt – A book that's published in 2018

http://tlocke.com/

Thomas Locke on Goodreads

Debbie Phillips
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Recruits: a facinating book

***** (5 stars out of 5)

Loved this book. Loved it. Loved it.

Wonderful. Ingenious. Creative. Original. Stupendous.

Transiting; moving, bodily, from one realm to another. The twins have seen their destination, dreamed of it, and drawn it, before they knew it was a real place, before they had the privilege of feeling the power within them, and traveling instantaneously to the train station in another world.

Is that all there is? Traveling back and forth to different worlds? Of course not. There is romance and there is a BATTLE coming. Every good book has a conflict that the main characters must solve. This conflict is a dilly. Dillon and Sean had been attacked, way back in chapter 13. The enemy knew that the twins were dangerous. The twins could foil their plans and they wanted to take them out early.

     “Shield the folks.”

     “I've been doing that.”

     “You feel it too, don't you?”

     “I feel something. I have no idea what it is. He watched Dillon ease himself down to the floor, “What just happened?”

     “I shut my eyes and I rose up and I went out into the yard. And I hunted.” pg 117

Cool. Now they can not only Transit but they can leave their bodies protected and go outside them and look around for trouble.

The Assembly (those in control) do not believe that the twins know anything about, or could hope to prevent, a coming battle. Dillon and Sean and their family have been attacked. Twice now, actually. The Assembly have a scapegoat and are blaming everything on him. Who really attacked them. The scapegoat happened to be someone I did not like earlier in the book. I wanted him to be punished. I wanted it to be him causing all this trouble.

What will happen? Will the authorities believe them in time to prevent a disaster?  Will Dillon and Sean come up with a plan? Will their plan be successful? Will others be hurt, even killed? What about the Earth?

This world and it's characters were believable, which is unbelievable. Locke's writing is so superb that you believe it could happen. That in itself is a wonder. 

Descriptions are realistic... I accept that the worlds Locke created exist, and wish I could travel to them. They are nothing like Earth. 

The characters and the plot seem to propel each other forward. Not one taking over and pushing the book forward unnaturally. 

Locke uses his pseudonym to write books that are outside the Christian fiction genre, which he writes with his real name, and I think this is my favorite Locke book so far. It was extraordinary.

I highly recommend that you read this book, find out the answers to my questions for yourself, and I hope that you find it as fascinating as I did.

You can find Thomas Locke and all his contact information at

http://tlocke.com

Debbie
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The Fragment - A Wonderous Book

Note: I received a complimentary copy of this book from Franciscan Media in exchange for my honest review. The review is my own and I was not influenced by the fact that I received the book for free.

Publisher's Description of the book...

It’s 1923, and a resilient Paris is starting to recover from the ravages of World War I and the Spanish Flu epidemic. 

Enter Muriel Ross, an amateur photographer tasked with documenting the antiques that her employer, U.S. Senator Tom Bryan, has traveled to France to acquire.

Although she’s exhilarated to have escaped her parents and the confines of their stifling Virginia home, Muriel has lingering questions about why the senator has chosen her for this grand adventure. Nevertheless, she blossoms in her new surroundings, soaking up Parisian culture and capturing the sights and sounds of Paris on her camera.

But events take a dangerous turn when she discovers that the senator is on a mission far more momentous—and potentially deadly—than a mere shopping trip.

At the Cathedral of Notre Dame, Senator Bryan asks Muriel to photograph an astonishing artifact: a piece of the True Cross, discovered by Empress Helena—a historical figure familiar to readers of The Pilgrim.

When rumors surface that another fragment has been unearthed, Muriel becomes enmeshed in a covert international alliance dedicated to authenticating the fragment—and protecting it from those who will stop at nothing to steal and discredit it.

The Fragment releases February 19, 2016, from Franciscan Media Books. http://www.davisbunn.com/book/the-fragment-davis-bunn.htm

Hardcover, Paperback and eBook: 176 pages
Publisher: Franciscan Media
Publication Date: February 19, 2016

My Review

A Wondrous book...Deep...Mysterious...Intense...Fantastic.

I give this book 5 of 5 stars.

I really got in to this book. It kept my attention and demanded that I keep reading... and so I did. Finishing in less than a week.

The characters are outstanding, as usual in a Davis Bunn book. Endearing and talented Muriel. The powerful but kindhearted Senator Bryant. Scarred (in more than one way) and mannerly Charles. A myriad of other secondary characters: upstanding ones, sinister people, virtuous citizenry, villainous enemies and everyday folk.

A quest. The search for a religious artifact. A fragment of the True Cross.

Muriel has just the qualifications Senator Bryan needs. She is a Christian. She is a gifted photographer. She has studied History and antiquities. But she doubts her own talent and worries that others think more highly of her than they ought. She feels out of place. Then she helps to create an opportunity to photograph, up close, an authenticated fragment of the True Cross in the Cathedral of Notre Dame. The fragment is kept in a reliquary in the shape of a cross.

     “The wood was brownish red.... She knew it was most likely a patina of blood that concealed the grain.

     Muriel felt the emotions well up in her like great waves, crashing upon her heart, sending her to her knees. Even then she could not take her eyes off the small sliver of wood. She had lived with her faith her entire life. She was child of the church. And yet it seemed to her as though she never experienced her Savior's gift I such a way as now.” (pg 45)

The quest is just beginning. They must travel to Constantinople. A place of unrest. They hope to find another reliquary. Muriel hopes to find answers for her future.

Growth. Challenges. Other people's lives on the line. A choice only she can make. These are the things ahead of Muriel.

What about Senator Byran. What is his aspiration?

     "That has been my lifelong dream, sir. To bring a fragment and plant it in our land, where it may take root and grow a family of God." (pg 148)

That is what the senator wants. Will he fulfill this desire? Will they succeed?? Read the book and find out!

These are the things that kept me reading. They will keep you reading also. I highly recommend this book.

About Davis Bunn

Davis Bunn is an award-winning novelist with total worldwide sales of seven million copies. 

 His work has been published in twenty languages, and critical acclaim includes four Christy Awards for excellence in fiction and his 2014 induction into the Christy Hall of Fame.

Davis divides his time between Florida and England, where he serves as Writer In Residence at Regent’s Park College at The University of Oxford. Visit Davis at http://www.davisbunn.com/

Davis’s other online outposts:
Download a free list of Davis Bunn’s published novels: http://bit.ly/1nUdVIb
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Review of Trial Run, a Technothriller Mystery

Note: I received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Where does perception end and reality begin?
Can your mind actually cause something to happen in the “real” world?
What happens when we throw out our conception of the limits of space and time?
When science, government, and big business clash, who will ultimately have control of our information, our privacy, and even our very thoughts?
One thing remains clear:
What you don’t know can kill you.

My Review

I liked this book. I have to admit though, it took me a long time to really get into the book, til chapter 60 of 89. That's page 267 out of 374. This book is not the type of book I typically read. I am not sure if I would have finished it if I did not agree to do a review of it, I probably would have. I don't like to quit things that I start. I can not be sure of course, since I felt I had to finish it for the review, but I think I would have continued to read.

They call this type of book tapestry book. Many threads in the book come together. It was hard in the first 20 or so chapters to keep the characters straight. I had to keep checking back to previous chapters to see who was in which group. There are two basic sides in the novel, two groups, though at first there were 4 or 5 groups of characters, maybe more. I did consider making a chart of the characters, that may have helped, but I never did it. As the novel went on some of the groups merged and that, with the familiarity of learning more about the characters, and the plot of the story, made the reading easier.

Also, there was a lot of science involved in the novel, quantum physics, not exactly something I ever studied. I struggled with this and I am not a dumb woman. I studied a lot of science in high school and college, as well as while I homeschooled my children for 24 years. But, not this deep. It was over my head. Until in chapter 60 Thomas Locke explained some of the science in terms that I began to understand.

“Elene asked, “What is the rate of infection?”  

“One hundred percent.”

“What is the cure rate?

“Zero. If a person ingests the misfolded molecule, that person is gone. This transformation takes       place at an alarming rate. To put it bluntly, the beta-pleated sheets eat holes in the brain. This results in a steady degeneration of physical and mental, and finally death. In cows, where this phenomenon was first identified, it is known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE, or mad cow disease. When it is transited to humans, it became known as new variant Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease, or nvCJD.” (pg. 272)

This is just a little taste of the science in this book. But, mad cow disease. That, at least, I have heard of.

This book, unlike most of the other books that I have read by this author (not as his alias Thomas Locke but as Davis Bunn) did not have much of a spiritual basis. Most of the other books I read do have a spiritual understructure to them.

The transiting/ascents/out-of-body experiences were strange to me. I am not sure what I feel about those kinds of things. I don't really believe those things can happen. Fantasy, I don't mind reading fantasy. Out-of-body experiences, I don't know what to think really.

It may sound like I have more reservations about the book than positive things. That is not really so. I enjoyed the book. It was challenging to read, but maybe a challenging book once in a while is good for us. It stretched my mind, and my comfort zone as well. It is good to stretch the mind. It needs “exercise” as much as our body does. Keeps it sharp.

The character were well developed and likable, especially the ones on the “right” side. I liked the slight good vs. evil side of things as well.

Here is one of my favorite quotes from the book. Gabriella is speaking to Shane...

“Logically there is no possible way the two could be connected. He dreams and receives experiences you call images. He has no control. He cannot make them happen. He is a passive observer. You, on the other hand, ascend by your own choice and actions.” She smiled once more. “But I am Italian. Logic plays a much smaller role in my society. So my professional mind says, we cannot verify any connection without a great deal more study. But my heart says, we have all been drawn together for purposes beyond our wildest dreams.” (pg 293)

I think I like this quote because it shows the human element in the story. The characters, relationships, the connections are what made me keep reading.

And, the rest of the book bears out that quote. The book gets more and more exciting as it goes on
from there. Chases, bombs, grenades, breaking people out, attacks, sleeplessness, airplane trips,injuries, and more.

Now for general information, free previews, and a Q and A with the author...

Link to Trial Run page on Thomas Locke’s website 

Hardcover, Paperback and ebook: 384 pages
Publisher: Revell
Publication Date: August 4, 2015

Free pdf sample of Trial Run chapter 1 by Thomas Locke

Video Trailer for Trial Run
https://youtu.be/FS9Vr2Nfc4Q

Thomas Locke is an award-winning novelist with total worldwide sales of seven million copies.
His work has been published in twenty languages, and critical acclaim includes four Christy Awards for excellence in fiction and his 2014 induction into the Christy Hall of Fame.
Thomas divides his time between Florida and England, where he serves as Writer In Residence at Regent’s Park College at The University of Oxford. Visit Thomas at http://tlocke.com.
 

Q and A With Thomas Locke, author of Trial Run

Q: What reader did you have in mind when you were writing Trial Run?
Thomas Locke: I suspect there are a lot of readers out there like me, who love mainstream fiction in principle, but are dismayed by how dark it is becoming.
I love to read. I am happiest with a good book in my hands. And most of my purchases are mainstream fiction. Too often, however, I find myself skipping over bits that are just plain not necessary for a good story.

I wrote Trial Run for readers like me. Passionate about story, yearning for the thrill of a great tale, hoping for something that uplifts as well as ignites.
Here’s a video trailer for Trial Run, hot off the press:
https://youtu.be/FS9Vr2Nfc4Q

Q: In Trial Run, you introduce several seemingly unrelated threads at the beginning of the story. By the end of the story, those threads have become woven together in an intricate tapestry. What’s your thought process behind this writing strategy?

Thomas Locke: This concept can best be summed up by the phrase you often hear a Hollywood producer say: “Where is the cut?”

By this, the producer means, what can you leave out of the script so that the audience must figure things out for themselves?

Instead of spoon-feeding the audience every item required to move to the climax, things are left unsaid. This sense of vacuum draws the audience into the action, and hurries them forward to the story’s close.

Q: Several settings in Trial Run (Santa Barbara, CA, the Italian/Swiss border site) depict real places. How do you select these real-life settings for your stories, and do you alter details of these places to suit your stories?

Thomas Locke: The core element of my placing a story is research. And the core element in my research is emotion. For many people, the ‘take’ that I finally use in the story does not jibe with what they like to see as valid for a particular setting, especially when that place is close to their heart and I have used a more negative perspective. But the facts have been carefully studied.
An example from Trial Run is Santa Barbara. For a lot of people who know and love California, this is their absolute favorite place in the SoCal region. And for good reason. It is a lovely town, one my wife and I really enjoy visiting.

For this story, I was granted an insider’s view into the University of California at Santa Barbara, or UCSB. And from the perspective of many students enrolled there, UCSB is filled with hyper-inflated SoCal egos.

The contrast I found between the students with money (and in SoCal, when I say they had money, I really mean they had money) and those who don’t is as sharp as anywhere I have ever been. The student who formed my core source and guide was on a scholarship. He was there to study. He was, to say the least, in a minority.

Everything I described about the school, the bicycle traffic and the events on the beach and the housing, are based on observation. But the perspective was based upon the humorous bafflement with which this student viewed many of his fellow classmates.

I personally love this aspect of building a story. The research at this emotional level grants me the opportunity to see the world through another person’s eyes and heart. Being trusted with this, time and again, is part of the miracle process that happens every time I start a new tale.

 Q: I’ve heard there’s a free ebook prequel to Trial Run. How can I get a copy?

Summary: Discover how it all began in this explosive prequel to Trial Run…

There isn’t much that can throw Charlie Hazard off balance. But the mystery woman with the striking eyes and the intense request to follow her—now—just might accomplish it.

Knowing little more than her beautiful name, Charlie leaves his post as a guard at the Satellite Beach community center for what he thinks is just another risk-containment job.

But Gabriella, an experimental psychologist, has far more in store for him than protection duty—if the two of them survive the test.

Leave behind your perceptions of what is possible and race into the unknown corridors of human consciousness in this breakneck prequel to Thomas Locke’s Trial Run.

Thomas Locke: As I was writing the opening scenes of Trial Run, I found myself continually asking questions about what happened before that door opened and before the party started. I began sketching a sort of parallel story, laying out ideas that formed the story-before-the-story.

“Double Edge” is the result.

The publishers liked the short story prequel so much that they have asked me to write a complete novel based upon these concepts. This novel will form either book three or book four in the series.

You’ll find links on my website http://tlocke.com/fault-lines/ for downloading your free copy of “Double Edge” from your favorite online bookseller.


Q: Trial Run is book 1 in the three-volume Fault Lines series. Please give us a preview of what to expect in book 2.

Thomas Locke: This is a timely question, as I completed the first draft of book 2 on June 8. The working title is Flash Point.

In many respects, Flash Point is a true hybrid. By this I mean that the core themes are the same as in Trial Run. But everything is also very different. I had two key questions in mind when I started book two: How far can I take this? How much can I risk?

This whole concept of controlled out-of-body experiences opens up a completely new vista. I had to develop a new story framework for Trial Run, and everywhere I looked I found myself asking the same questions:

• Where does this take mankind?
• If this could actually happen, where do we go?
• Who are we as people?
• How would this remake us?

These questions are first asked in Flash Point. Where we go from here depends mostly upon you, the reader.

So let’s dance!

Get to know Thomas Locke at these online outlets:
Website: http://tlocke.com/
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