Sunday, March 10, 2013

Awesome Person

Less than 12 hours away from the world premiere of the "Awesome Person Podcast".

Review: A Cast of Stones by Patrick W. Carr

         Errol Stone, the town drunk finds himself short of cash for another night of drinking when a message from clergyman comes into town looking to deliver a message. For a price Errol takes on the challenge. What he didn't know, is that the message of great "kingdom" importance would lead him into precarious situations. He will be the object of scorn for an assassin and led into other adventures which has his life of drunkenness turned upside down as he becomes the hero of the story.

         I liked the book, but I didn't love the book. Maybe it is just me, but I could not picture the characters in my mind, the author was unable to paint their picture in my mind enough to make them interesting of believable. While the story was filled with action and little "filler content", it almost moves along too quickly for me, I didn't have enough time to get myself attached or interested in the characters. The story has some great themes and you could definitely see the Christian underlines in the story, this is often difficult to pull off without coming across as cheesy or preachy. Patrick W. Carr was able to pull of this rare ability to pull off Christian message into a Fantasy/Fiction novel without losing quality in the storytelling.
   
        The writing was fairly descriptive, but sometimes feeling a little forced to sound to "fantasyesque".
I know a lot of people enjoyed this book, and I could see how it would appeal to a large population of people, but I was not able to connect to the book and could not find myself looking forward to the next chapter. If you were to compare this book to the likes of Stephen Lawhead, I would say it does not bring itself to the same level. But for a first novel by the author, I am impressed and I am intrigued to see if he takes his writing up a notch in the next book or series. Overall I could give the book a clean 3/5 stars.

"Book has been provided courtesy of Baker Publishing Group and Graf-Martin Communications, Inc.
Available at your favourite bookseller from Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group"