Thursday 22 December 2011

Review - The Star Child by Stephanie Keyes

 
Gosh, it's been a busy old week over here.  Yesterday, I had the wonderful Janice Horton join me for a chat, today I'm delighted to welcome Stephanie Keyes, author of The Star Child.

Hi Steph, welcome to my little old blog.  Thanks so much for joining me here today.

In light of the Christmas holiday being just two days aways, I thought I'd ask just a few holiday related questions, if that's alright
?

Sure Kim, fire away!

Where are you with your Christmas shopping? Have you finished?
I'm all done! I was finished in November. I hate having to deal with all of the crowds. So I started in September.

How will you spend the holiday?
We host my in-laws on Christmas Eve and my husband does all of the cooking. Then we get up at the crack of dawn on Christmas morning and spend the entire day with my mother and brother. We have a big dinner on both days and I end up working out on the morning of the 26th out of guilt!

What was the most challenging gift that you bought this year?
I don't know if it was challenging to buy so much as challenging to have delivered! I ordered a bike for my son from Santa and they were delivering it to our front door when we were pulling into the drive. I kept telling him to look down the street at the Christmas lights and it was the middle of the day!

Win a Starbucks Gift Card!
Use the Comments section to tell us about the most challenging gift that you bought this year and you could win a Starbucks gift card! The use it to buy your coffee to accompany your read of The Star Child! Only comments posted on December 22nd are eligible.

About the book
Kellen St. James is a bright young man who has never recovered from the loss of his Mother when he was a young child, and has a father, who he feels does not care for him at all.  If fact, his father even forgot to go to his graduation from Yale.  While on the podium receiving his accolade, the world as he knew it, stopped and he was taken back in time to a period of his childhood where he was staying at his Grandmother's house.  While there, he met a beautiful young girl called Calienta.  She walked away from him with her father and all he wanted to do is to go with her.

Calienta has haunted his dreams ever since, and when he discovers that his Grandmother has passed away, he returns to her house on the Irish Coast and finds out far more about him mother.  Calienta turns up, this time not in his dreams but for real and tells him a tale about an ancient prophecy and informs him that he is the only one who can save the world from darkness. 

Bearing in mind, that he loves this girl more than he thought would ever be possible and had nothing really to lose, they set off on an wild adventure, through mystical worlds of faeries and angels, with the odd evil demon and wild dog thrown in along the way.  Sound bizarre?  It is, but also hugely enjoyable.  

This book was a real treat for me to read.  Quite different to my normal reading material, this magical fairytale held me captivated until the adventure ended.  The main characters were wonderfully created, enchanting and loveable.  I became submerged in a whole other world, a world of make believe and fantasy, a place where the outside world didn't exist.   I found myself thinking about the story and the characters when I was away from the book, which I always think is the sign of a cracking book. 

While reading this book, I did think to myself that as Stephanie is mom to two young children and the family dog, she must tell the most amazing bedtime stories!  She is full of imagination and fun.  The vivid and colourful descriptions make the scenes in her story come alive and I'd love her to visit and read a story to Oliver at bedtime! I'm sure he'd be the same as I was; completely mesmerised. 

A fabulous debut novel from this author and I hope to seeing a lot more from her in the future.

About the author:
When Stephanie isn’t writing, she works full time as a Corporate Educator and Curriculum Designer. She holds a M.Ed. from Duquesne University and an undergraduate degree in Management information Systems from Robert Morris University. Stephanie is a clarinetist, saxophonist, and vocalist, and is always making music somewhere at sometime. She credits her loving husband of ten years and her two sons for the completion and publication of the Star Child. 
Find out more about Stephanie at http://www.stephaniekeyes.com.

The Star Child is available on;


Barnes and Noble 


Follow Her On Twitter: http://bit.ly/jjneXg

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Kim,
Thanks for letting me stop by today!
Steph X

Linn B Halton said...

Your posts are always very personal Kim and both you and Stephanie share a common bond - in your children. It takes one to know one, as they say! I have already loaded The Star Child onto my Kindle and it's ready and waiting to be read... very, very soon!