I received this book for free from in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Published by Evolved Publishing on November 4, 2019
Genres: Fantasy
Pages: 219
Format: eBook
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Have you ever awoken from a vivid dream and wondered which side of waking was real?
Burt Higgins' retirement is not going well. His children have grown, and his wife has gone off to earn a late-life degree, leaving him alone in his sprawling suburban home. With too much time on his hands, he broods on the state of the world, obsessively following the worst of cable news and the Internet. Increasingly angry at the state of affairs, he nurtures a fantasy that a dark lord from another realm has foisted these problems on humankind. If only he could transport to that world, he'd confront the demon and use the magic found there to defeat the beast and end despair forever.
On a particularly bad news day, while housebound in the midst of a snowstorm, he retreats to his study to shut out the world and immerse himself in his books. When, on a whim, he lights a candle purchased in an obscure Prague curiosity shop, a magical guide appears and offers to take him on whatever quest he chooses. When he asks to become a hero in a fantasy realm, he discovers a more complex world than he expected, and battling evil with magic turns out to be far from his greatest challenge.
This book was an adventure of a man straddling two worlds… a real one and a fantasy one. In the fantasy world, he seeks to learn the source of all despair, and to save a woman and her children. However, the two worlds tend to blend together and what he does in one affects the other. The prose was brilliant the descriptions of things and places were very well done. However, I did have trouble at times understanding what was going on, what certain things meant or represented. I think my take away is that the fantasy world helped the narrator to gain appreciation for what he had in the real world, and to ultimately cherish it.
About David Litwack
The urge to write first struck when working on a newsletter at a youth encampment in the woods of northern Maine. It may have been the night when lightning flashed at sunset followed by northern lights rippling after dark. Or maybe it was the newsletter’s editor, a girl with eyes the color of the ocean. But he was inspired to write about the blurry line between reality and the fantastic.
Using two fingers and lots of white-out, he religiously typed five pages a day throughout college and well into his twenties. Then life intervened. He paused to raise two sons and pursue a career, in the process becoming a well-known entrepreneur in the software industry, founding several successful companies. When he found time again to daydream, the urge to write returned.
There Comes a Prophet, published in July 2012, was the first novel in this new stage of life. His second, Along the Watchtower, came out in June 2013.
David and his wife split their time between Cape Cod, Florida and anywhere else that catches their fancy. He no longer limits himself to five pages a day and is thankful every keystroke for the invention of the word processor.
