My sequel to Back by Sunrise is now live – DAWN OF DESTINY. Check it out while it’s only $0.99, and please leave a review.
The Book:
It’s been a year since Brooke spent a night as a bird, and now she’s beginning to wonder if it ever really happened. She still grieves her father, but has her family and her new friend, Clarice, to keep her happy. That joy is replaced by confusion when two of her dad’s old Army buddies show up asking about a necklace.
Could they be after the same necklace that magically turned Brooke into a bird?
She thinks surely not, but when she overhears them saying that they’re all doomed if they don’t find that necklace, her worries are confirmed. It gets worse when another person shows up asking for the necklace, shadows move in ways they should not, and Clarice is put in harms way.
Will Brooke be able to navigate this storm of confusion and chaos? She’ll certainly use everything in her arsenal to try, and may see a little magic along the way.
This story was a lovely parable about the nature of death in the life of a young child. Brooke absolutely adores her father and when he goes away on active duty for the military and doesn’t come home, she’s distraught. He promised her that he would come home to finish painting birds and woodland creatures on the mural in her bedroom but now he can never do that.
As you can tell from the synopsis, Brooke turns into a bird when she puts on the necklace she finds from her father following his death and when she doesn’t make it back home by sunrise as the note she finds with it instructs her to do, she cannot turn back into her human form.
While she is stuck in her bird form, she feels an even greater sense of helplessness than she’s been feeling since the death of her father. She finds that making new friends eases her burden, especially when faced by a greater evil hat stands between her and becoming human again to rejoin her family.
She meets Roy, a kind young bird who teaches her how to use her wings and shares with her the loss of his father and Timmy, a mouse with his own sad story who teaches her to think about the feelings of her family as well as her own.
The message in this story comes through loud and clear, that friends and family are important in times of bereavement and that though the pain feels personal and lonely, other people have gone through the same thing too and others may be sharing in your grief.
What I like most about this story is that it doesn’t come across as sad, it is the story of a child on a magical adventure and coming across challenges but coming through the other side. The fairytale quality of the writing takes the edge off the painful topic and feels comfortably familiar.
I would definitely recommend this story for a primary aged child going through a bereavement or even to children in general to help them understand the concept of loss.
Rebecca Greene brought a great energy which would easily keep a child’s attention and lightened the mood of the story. Her character voices were very entertaining and she made Brooke’s grief seem very real, her performance and the production quality of this audiobook were second to none.
To celebrate my second book in the Eternal Light series (Dawn of Destiny – available for preorder now), I’m doing an Amazon ebook giveaway of Allie Strom and the Ring of Solomon.
Why this book? Because Back by Sunrise and Dawn of Destiny are the prequel series to my Allie Strom books. If you read those two, you’ll see the epic way that they connect, and how it’s really one just big series (I happen to like trilogies though, and I think you’ll agree when you read that this way makes the most sense). So come along for the ride and see if you win your free ebook!
ALLIE STROM AND THE RING OF SOLOMON
In this teen paranormal fantasy, Allie thinks she’s a normal kid with normal problems on her first day of seventh grade. She hopes for a fresh start despite her mom being overseas with the Army, again. But none of that matters when she discovers that her mom has gone missing.
On the same day of her mom’s disappearance, Allie finds the necklace her mom was never without. When the necklace magically teleports her new friend Daniel and her to Central Asia, she learns her necklace contains an ancient magic; the power of the ring of Solomon, which she must use to fight off an army of darkness and a giant with eyes of fire.
Most important of all, the necklace appears to be the key to finding her mom.
Book 2, ALLIE STROM AND THE SWORD OF THE SPIRIT is now out!
In this sequel, Allie Strom returns to school only to find out a normal life may never be her thing.
Instead she finds herself in intense training to fulfill her destiny of becoming the Tenth Worthy and stopping the dark forces led by Samyaza, and finds herself questioning how involved she’s ready to be.
Will she pull herself together in time to stop the evil forces and rescue the missing kids from book 1? Will she find Samyaza in time to stop him from taking the power of the Tenth Worthy for himself? Read on to find out for yourself.
I’m happy to announce that the print version of Allie Strom and the Ring of Solomon is available! If you get a chance to check it out, let me know what you think (preferably through a review online here.
Book 2 and 3 are available for preorder, so you can have the entire trilogy in your library (and they are coming out a month apart, so it’s not a long wait.
My sequel to Back by Sunrise is now live – DAWN OF DESTINY. Check it out while it’s only $0.99, and please leave a review.
