I’ve been in the mood to get lost in a fantasy novel for a long time. My last attempt consisted of reading 80%+ of one of Brandon Sanderson’s 1000 page tomes before DNF-ing it. Pretty shameful, I know. I just realized that though I think Sanderson is a fantastic writer, it just wasn’t the story I needed to read right now, I was dreading picking it up, and that’s okay.
It’s been a busy season. I homeschool a 5 year old. I have a 5 month old baby. I wouldn’t trade my homemaker life for anything, but the reality is that reading certain books is a lot harder than it used to be. On top of that, the political situation and the Covid-related situation is a lot to deal with.
I needed a book that could re-orient me into the story world every time I picked it up, and I needed it to happen quickly!
Sometimes I have ten minutes to read. If I’m spending 9 of those minutes trying to remember which of 5 character POV’s I’m on and which of 2404930 fantasy lands they’re in, it kind of takes the escapism out of it.
A Cast of Stones is not a wordy, giant, LOTR/Game of Thrones epic sort of fantasy book.
It’s the kind of story I would fall into when I was 11 years old, diving into a new book from the library, devouring every word at a rapid clip. It’s the kind of book I wanted to read under the covers with a flashlight (I didn’t, since my daughter probably would have heard me in her crib and started flailing about, but still). It’s the kind of book that made me sort of maybe want to pick up a stick and pretend I’m a master staff fighter like the main character.
I’m 29 years old, and that’s the kind of book I needed desperately.
I heard about this book on some blog post about good Christian fantasy. I don’t read many specifically Christian fiction books, but I’m always hopeful I’ll find a super-good one that will reclaim the genre for me.
Well, I did. Thank you, Patrick W. Carr.
Our main character is genuinely flawed. There’s no corny “tee-hee I’m perfect but sometimes I doubt the Lord” sort of thing here, that’s for sure. Errol is an alcoholic, he’s envious of others, he thinks he’s a failure, and he’s really had a tough time of it. Because of that, I fell in love with Errol Stone. By the end, I was pretty much fist-pumping the air with joy at how much he overcame.
I wonder if the author is Catholic, Anglican, Orthodox, or Lutheran. There’s a lot of sacramental elements to the fantasy faith of this story world, and as a Catholic it was pretty refreshing. That said, this was one of those rare books I think that fantasy fans of any stripe could enjoy. It wasn’t preachy, or pushy, or corny.
As a writer, I would love to balance clean content and an exciting, realistic story as masterfully as Patrick W. Carr does.
Seriously, the writing is fantastic. It’s simple, but not childish. Dialogue was great, setting was great, action was great, but let me reiterate: the characters were wonderful and I loved them to pieces.
A caveat: there is magic (of a sort) and there is violence. It’s not overly gory, but it’s not fully “black screen” either. It didn’t bother me at all, but it’s there. The (light, so far) romantic elements are clean with a couple of slight suggestive comments. Again, nothing I found very troublesome.
I bought book two already. I cannot wait to tear into it. I rarely buy books full price (thrifting books is way too much fun…), but I will happily pay for this series new. I feel like I’ve found a gem that I will read over and over, just like I used to do when I was younger and life was simpler.
5 of out of 5 stars. This is my favorite book of 2021 so far.
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