Review: Brought back memories of bedtime stories
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 05 13, 2012
As a fairy tale for young adults, Daphne and the Silver Ash is rich in the culture and history of a place that is a world we recognize, but is not a part of us. It is in a fantasy setting and fantastical things happen, described in full, beautiful detail, bringing back memories of listening to books read to us by our parents at bedtime. Though it is a mythical book of sorts, it was interesting to find that as a reader you were surrounded by somewhat more modern things like muskets and doctors as opposed to bows and arrows and magical shamans. These things build on to the story, creating a sense of time that is away from time and added an interesting dimension to the characters and their surroundings. There is magic, but there is technology, there is belief in these otherworldly creatures, yet there is some science and understanding. Truly a unique point of view from most books of this type.The descriptions throughout the book cause the visual image come alive in the reader's mind, making the fictional place believable as a real location, someplace you would want to see and explore. You can see the crumbling rocks and the shine of the phoenix, hear the whispers of the nymph and the sounds of the muskets. While we know only some of the story of the characters so far, the end of the book promises that more will come from this beautiful world of magic and strength, something that any reader should look forward to once they've reached the last page, which comes all too quickly. It is clear that much time and thought was put into this world, may the life of the tree spread outward into more stories of strong women and bring even more hope to this community within a world all its own.Note: Though this book was a free gift from the author, the content of my review was in no way influenced by the gifting. The book speaks for itself and my review would have been worded just this way even if I'd gone out and bought it. I also give bonus points for Text To Speech enabling on Kindle format.... but that also wasn't a factor in the above review.