Buzz Words is excited to be part of Stephen Anastasi's blog tour for not one but two books. For the list of all the other fantastic book blogs participating in the tour, see below.
Win a copy of The Runes of Ire or The Druids. Details at the end of the post.
PB RRP $17.95
ISBN
9780987244420
Reviewed by
Anastasia Gonis
Garney
lives a life ‘out of order’. He’s a dreamer and friendless, and is always late.
He loses the bus, his belongings and has lost his father. He is a victim and
Thatch the bully loves to remind him of that. But it’s his twelfth birthday and
something wonderful awaits him.
He delights in being with his cousin and best
friend Eldeth, who has also just turned twelve. Arriving at the House of Two
Rooms, ‘the shared inheritance of all the Barnicoats with Pepper as their
multi-grandfather’, Garney is allocated the room with the dragons on the door
and the inside walls. He is also given a camouflaging Barni-coat. The symbolic
meaning of this room and how it will inform his life is slowly revealed.
Eldeth
lives inside a deformed body. But his body does not define who he is. He grasps
what he can of life to ensure that he fills what he believes is limited time,
with everything he longs to do. Garney dreams of a magic potion that will
straighten Eldeth’s crooked back and legs.
Aunt May is
an optimistic and positive person. Her conversations about special powers,
focus and concentration, and the history of the Barnicoats excite the boys’
imagination. She frequently reminds them ‘that things are rarely as they seem’.
But they cannot imagine what is in store for them. Their life is about to move
into another dimension in more ways than one. In this dimension, Garney fits;
he belongs.
The boys go
in search of the attic to discover treasures and secrets, but find none. Garney
again proves to be smart and finds a secret passageway leading to the attic
with a computer. He enters into a game that only the keeper of the Wild Magic
can use which magically opens to Garney. The challenge proves that he is
anything but the scatterbrain others see him as. He shows focus, concentration
and problem-solving skills and wins not the expected pair of virtual reality
headsets but two face masks. On wearing them, Graney and Eldeth enter a world
of the fourth and a half dimension where things are not always as they appear.
They embark
on a wondrous adventure that demands all their combined skill, focus,
concentration, inner strength and integrity. This adventure morphs into a great
quest. The computer game has become their reality and this reality is surreal
and dangerous. But the boys are no longer the same as when they began. Their
world is now consumed by challenges, dragons, searches and family history; physical
and mental tests of intelligence and courage. Their participation in the
warring of good and evil in different forms reshapes the two friends.
There are
so many levels, themes and philosophical meanings to explore in this
marvellously intelligent book; a book that aptly reflects the mind of its
creator. It is true that it will be read twice, for only in the second reading
will the scope of the author’s imagination be acknowledged.
The Druid: Adventure
One of the Trilogy – The Land of the Rainbow’d Sun by Stephen Anastasi (Morris
Publishing Australia)
PB RRP $15.95
ISBN
9780987244437
Reviewed by
Anastasia Gonis
Titian is
an orphan and wasted from work and lack of adequate food. She is a wisp of a
girl cowered by life, but mostly by Cook’s cruelty. She appears weak because
she’s downtrodden, but in fact has a strong mind and spirit, and is a
deep-thinking and compassionate being.
Myriam, another
servant under Cook’s inhumane rule, has taught Titian about herb lore and
through the long days tending sheep, she has cultivated a deep bond with the
natural world around her. She has also learnt about the healing fragrant moss
that was once abundant but which has disappeared from sight long ago.
Myriam is
Titian’s only source of love, learning and comfort, except for the occasional
kindness from Samson, a mighty warrior of the Clan. Titian alone can see the
Mystal dragons which she has come to love that flow though the mist when she sits
with the sheep. These long days alone are filled with carving and shaping a
staff fashioned from a fallen oak branch. The carver’s talent will lead to a
shift in her life.
Titian is
caught with the staff by Dariad, the son of the Druid Mater who believes the
girl to be the One the Druids have been seeking. The Swarthymen, the people
with a sole ambition to kill and conquer, believe she is a healer and she is
taken. Escaping from her captors, Titian begins an astonishing quest bound to and
by the staff and the dragon carved thereon.
This quest
will see Titian lead her people through fighting, death and finally freedom,
and see her challenged by change, adventures of discovery, and the greatest
evolution of self.
The Druid is very much a character driven
fantasy novel. It is a perfectly paced, well written novel filled with shifts
and changes, sub-stories and magical adventures. This is the first book in the
Trilogy, The Land of the Rainbow’d Sun.
The incredible cover created by Scott Anastasi is mysteriously joined to the
author’s other series currently released: The
Runes of Ire: Adventure One of the Mathemagicians of Yore. The two
half faces of each book, one of each main character, join together to make one
face. A highly inventive and eye-catching parallel.
Blog tour dates and hosts for Stephen
Anastasi:
The Runes of Ire and The Druid are available
from your local bookshop. They may not be in stock, but the store can order it
through distributor Dennis Jones and Associates. It is also available in many
on-line stores as a paperback and as an eBook, and from http://morrispublishingaustralia.com.
You can win a signed copy of either
book in a competition the publisher Morris Publishing Australia is
running as a part of this promotional tour. One of each book is up for grabs. To
go in the draw, simply go to the website by the link above and on the contact
page form write: Stephen’s competition, your name, email address, and your book
preference.
