Review: Rowan of the Wood by Christine and Ethan Rose

Tags: fantasy

Summary

Before Scotland, there was Caledonia. Rowan and Fiana are two powerful magicians whose impending love marriage will bring peace and happiness to their people. However, enemies interrupt the ceremony, forcing Rowan to hide inside his wand. Fiana swears to do anything to find Rowan…including using black magic.

Over a thousand years later, among the redwood forests of modern-day California, twelve-year-old foster child Cullen Knight stumbles across an odd-looking stick of wood. Life is harsh on Cullen: his foster family treats him with no love, and he is bullied in school for his diminutive size and young age. When he picks up the wand, however, the spirit of Rowan also occupies Cullen’s body, coming out in times of trauma or stress. And Cullen’s life is changed forever. Will he be the one to reunite Rowan with his fiancée, and save Fiana from the grips of evil?

Review

To start, this book will not be an easy read for what can only be called the “Harry Potter” generation. Despite its uncanny similarities to Harry Potter—the cruel foster family, the magic, the protagonist’s isolation from “normal” school society—ROWAN OF THE WOOD does not have the easy engagement and attraction of Rowling’s series. The writing is often heavy and stilted; adults will be able to appreciate it much more.

Once you get past the often detracting writing, however, the result is a decent fantasy story that runs between two time periods. Fiana’s trek through magical time is interesting, and Rose does a good job of painting the harsh realities of middle school, a place where bullies lurk. I would recommend this for parents with kids who enjoyed Harry Potter and want to read similarly styled books.

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I'm sorry for the lack of my, er, presence here on Blogger lately. Things should've been posted and were late. My Friday Featured Blogger will be moved to next Friday (sorry, you know who you are). I've been so busy with schoolwork these past few days that I barely have any energy to do anything else--or so it feels like. Right now I would love nothing more than to be placed in a dark, empty room so I can just sit there and meditate, clear my head of all the responsibilities and things I have to do.

Ah well! I'll try to keep up here and leave my usual round of comments for everyone. Which will happen once I get back to school (I'm home right now), where the Internet is much faster.