John Lawson Reviews

Added October 19, 2006

The Raven

Author: John Lawson
Publisher: Publish America
Available At: Bookstores Everywhere
Publishing Date: July 2006
Genre: Fantasy
Format: Trade Paperback
Price: $29.95
ISBN: 1-4241-4380-2
Reviewer: Kathy Martin
Rating: 7 Gargoyles

Throughout the Seven Kingdoms there are a group of knights of the church that practice the highest form of chivalry and fight to uphold the laws of God. They are called "Ravens." Guiromelans is such a knight.

He feels that he has spent all of his life working and living to achieve this rank. Now, a stone-bearing witch has defeated him in battle. And not just any witch, but a woman that he had fallen in love with. No, they had never been lovers, but he could feel her good heart and became attached to that.

But the Raven could not understand how God could have let the witch win on the battlefield. Guiromelans could not understand why God had forsaken him; what had the knight done to deserve this treatment?

So Guiromelans decides to go on a quest of redemption so that he may again appear righteous in the eyes of God. The Raven is going to learn many lessons on his journey. Some of which he is not going to like.

This story is the sequel to John Lawson's first book, "Witch Ember". Like the first, the Seven Kingdoms is a dark, violent and very political land.

Lawson again made the characters alive and multi-dimensional. Especially Guiromelans, who is traveling on a journey to understand his faith, and what God really wants from him.

I had a problem throughout the book with the dialogue. Many characters have some sort of burr or accent. While this slowed me down a bit, it did not take away from the overall story being told. Also, the book is very violent and the author is very descriptive of the fighting and the injuries inflicted. I do not care for this much violence in my fantasy stories, but it is indicative of the world the characters are in, and is not gratuitous violence.

Overall, I believe that the author has successfully put together a complicated, political world and storyline. If you like more complexity in your fantasy, this would be the book to read.

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Added October 19, 2006

Witch Ember

Author: John Lawson
Publisher: Publish America
Available At: Bookstores Everywhere
Publishing Date: March 2002
Genre: Fantasy
Format: Trade Paperback
Price: $29.95
ISBN: 1-59129-038-4
Reviewer: Kathy Martin
Rating: 7 Gargoyles

Esmeree is an orphan who remembers nothing before her life at the Mill. She is a street urchin, wandering and working the dirty, dark, crime-infested streets. But Esmeree is special. She carries in her a part of an ancient stone. Most people only have a spec of the stone in them, but Esmeree's is the size of a pebble. The girl has always known it was there and could feel its power tremble whenever she touched it. But she never really understood what it was or how it could be used. That is, until the Lady of the Mill, Andelliza, takes Esmeree on as her apprentice and starts to teach the young orphan about the strange stone she carries.

Esmeree learns about the power inside her, and is amazed at what it can do. But even though the girl appreciates what the Lady Andelliza is doing for her, Esmeree wants to leave the Mill and find out what is beyond it. But once she ventures out, Esmeree discovers that she is in more danger than she ever realized. Considered a witch by the Holy Median church, they want her captured and questioned by The Inquisition. As Esmeree uses her powers to help those she loves, she also has to continually use them to escape from those who would capture her and have her burned at the stake.

This book is very dark. The world in which Esmeree lives is full of death, filth and politics. I will admit that I had a hard time understanding the characters that were speaking with an accent. For me, this interrupted the flow of the dialogue. The physical cruelty that had to be endured by the characters was explicit and also hard to read at times.

Having said that, I must also say that the journey that Esmeree experiences in the book is engaging. This girl is put through a lot of trials, and attacks each as best she can. She could succumb to the evils of this world and become like those who want to destroy her, but instead she embraces the challenge of being true to herself and the ones she loves.

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