Tag Archives: donita k paul

One Realm Beyond by Donita K. Paul, a Review

OneRealmBeyond One Realm Beyond , Book 1 of the Realm Walkers series
Published 2014 by Zondervan, 414 pages
Genre: Christian fantasy, suitable for ages 12 and up

Cantor D’Ahma has grown into a young man. He leaves his elderly mentors and sets off to learn how to become a Realm Walker, using the gifts he was born with. His mentors don’t tell him much about what to expect, though. Just that the first thing he needs to do is find his dragon companion, and then he needs to locate the Realm Walkers Guild for training.

Cantor stumbles immediately across a dragon, but this dragon is clumsy. Surely there’s another dragon out there better suited for realm walking, and he keeps looking. But trouble arrives fast, and it becomes apparent that he needs the help of this dragon, Bridger, as well as some other new friends to even get to the place where he’s able to learn realm walking.

But the Realm Walkers Guild, he learns, is nearly all corrupted. They give him a teacher whom he trusts, but will his training mean anything? And will he and his friends be able to confront and change the guild?

I really enjoyed reading this book, which is rich in unusual characters. They have unusual names, too, such as the female dragon Totobee-Rodolow. The book is delightful in many ways, letting us enjoy the quirks of its characters–Totobee-Rodolow’s love for shopping, and a princess who wears her whole wardrobe at the same time, re-arranging which dress is on top to suit the occasion. The story line is not high-action and occasionally lacks tension, but the richness of the characters more than make up for these.

Dragons of the Watch by Donita K. Paul, a review

Dragons of the Watch by Donita K. Paul
Published 2011 by Waterbrook, 387 pages
Genre: Christian fantasy, suitable for all ages

Set in the world of Amara and Chiril where Paul’s other books take place, this one focuses on a new character, Ellie. Ellie belongs to the hobbit-sized tumanhofer race; she’s a farmer’s daughter who longs to go to the upcoming royal wedding.

Those of us who have read Paul’s two most recent books, Dragons of Chiril and Dragons of the Valley , will recognize the other main character, Bealomondore, a tumanhofer artist. In the previous books, he was a minor character, a unique and quirky war hero. In this book, he gets the romantic lead. (It’s not necessary to have read the previous two books, I am thinking. This one stands on its own very well.)

Ellie’s actually on her way to the royal wedding with her aunt and uncle when her beloved pet goat appears on a hillside where he shouldn’t be. She climbs out of the carriage to corral him and take him back home, but … he runs the other way! Chasing him, she finds herself falling through what looks like a glass wall. Now she’s trapped in a city built for giants, and inhabited by a rampaging horde of six-year-old giant children and a small troop of helpful kitten-sized dragons who mind-speak with humans.

But wait, there’s another adult present: a grumpy giant librarian. And one more: a tumanhofer, also trapped, Bealomondore. Soon Ellie and Bealomondore are working together to survive. Will the wild giant children kill and eat Ellie and Bealomondore, as they are threatening? And are the tumanhofers stuck in this city forever?

What do I think?

Ellie’s a great character, full of determination, big-sisterly instinct, and insecurities. Bealomondore’s your basic swashbuckling artist. The giant librarian is overwhelmed by his assignment, raising 60 six-year-olds. I really enjoyed getting to know these unusual characters. There’s a strong faith element, too. (But I thought the plot could have used some more tension in the middle.) It’s a gentle story, easy on the suspense and violence, and would make a good family read-aloud.

My reviews of the other two books in this series:

Dragons of Chiril (formerly called The Vanishing Sculptor)

Dragons of the Valley

Day 2- CSFF Blog Tour, The Vanishing Sculptor

I’m still talking about Donita K. Paul’s book, The Vanishing Sculptor, as Day 2 of the Christian Science Fiction/Fantasy Blog Tour. This blog tour has really grown in the year or so that I’ve been on it. It has taken me a while to visit all the 35 blogs listed and check out what others are saying.

Nearly everyone really enjoyed the book. It has an unusual feature for fantasy these days: it’s upbeat. Rachel Starr Thomson summarized it nicely:

“It was a thoroughly enjoyable read from start to finish. In a genre which often relies on heavy themes and gathering darkness, that can’t be said about every book. It’s entirely true of this one.”

It’s also got some great offbeat characters in it, particularly the giant parrot, many agreed.

Mrs. Paul has granted interviews in some cases. I emailed her some interview questions Sept. 12, and never got a reply, so I am guessing that the good old email system isn’t working too great as usual. In case she stops by this blog, here are the questions; maybe she could answer them in the comments.

Here they are:

1. Is The Vanishing Sculptor the beginning of another series?

2. Do paladins (emissaries of God) live 1000 years?

3. The market is in flux now, with Internet publishing gaining a foothold, and publishers cutting back on selections by unknown writers. Do you have advice for writers who have a Christian fantasy story they’d like to publish?

Here are the other blogs on the tour. I put a “+” next to the blogs that had a post on this topic when I looked for one.

Donita Paul’s blog: http://dragonbloggin.blogspot.com/

Brandon Barr
Jim Black
Justin Boyer
+ Rachel Briard
Karri Compton
+ Amy Cruson
+ Stacey Dale
D. G. D. Davidson
+ Jeff Draper
April Erwin
+ Karina Fabian
Linda Gilmore
Todd Michael Greene
Katie Hart
Ryan Heart
Becky Jesse
Cris Jesse
Jason Joyner
+ Julie
Carol Keen
+ Krystine Kercher
Dawn King
+ Rebecca LuElla Miller
Mirtika
Eve Nielsen (posting later in the week)
Nissa
+ John W. Otte
Lyn Perry
Crista Richey
Cheryl Russell
+ Chawna Schroeder
James Somers
Speculative Faith
+ Rachel Starr Thomson
+ Robert Treskillard
Steve Trower
+ Fred Warren
+ Dona Watson
+ Phyllis Wheeler
Elizabeth Williams
+ KM Wilsher

The Vanishing Sculptor by Donita K. Paul, a Review

sculptor

The Vanishing Sculptor by Donita K. Paul, also called The Dragons of Chiril, a review
Published by Waterbrook Press, 2009, 398 pages.
Genre: Christian fantasy, suitable for middle grade and up

It’s a medieval-style world, where friendly wizards use magic, technology has advanced as far as use of swords, and the animal kingdom includes huge sentient parrots as well as dragons, large and small, who communicate telepathically.

A young woman,Tipper, lives a sheltered life with her mother in an elegant house that has seen better days on the edge of a forest. Her artist father mysteriously vanished 15 years before. Her mother is pleasantly out to lunch, talking a lot of nonsense most of the time. Among other strange things, the mother claims that she sees Tipper’s father in the evenings.

When her mother goes on a trip, Tipper sees her father in the evenings too. It turns out he is in quite a fix, appearing but then vanishing into thin air after only a few minutes. It all has something to do with a “gateway” his wizard friend across the world in Amara rigged up in the closet of her parents’ bedroom.

The gateway is coming apart, threatening the fabric of the world. Tipper and her father, the wizard friend, a librarian, and a giant parrot set out on a quest to find the keys to putting it back together. Later on we find out that there are also some bad guys who want to take over the kingdom using the gateway.

What do I think?

Donita K. Paul wrote another successful series, the DragonKeeper Chronicles, which I have not read. The DragonKeeper stories are set in the same world as the characters in The Vanishing Sculptor, but they are separated by time and place. So to someone familiar with Paul’s work, the background and settings must seem familiar, though the characters aren’t.

For me, barging into this world clueless, it was difficult to sort out the seven races. Paul refers to these races by name–emerlindian, tumanhofer, etc., without explaining that they are races. After several chapters of puzzlement I looked up the strange words in the glossary, which I was glad to find.

Other than that, I found a well-crafted story. Tipper’s teenage character is self-centered in a very realistic way. Her bossy guardian, the large parrot, is also a fully-drawn self-important kind of guy. Only the wizard from Amara seems two-dimensional through most of the story, continually dropping lizards from his clothing with little variation. However, I understand he is a character in the other series, and so is probably more developed there.

Christian underpinnings for this story are definitely there. A loving deity is watching over the characters, sending an emissary to intervene. Paul does a great job of touching the heart of the matter in a lovely and satisfying way. So, I heartily recommend this book for a variety of ages. -Phyllis Wheeler

This review is part of the Christian Science Fiction/Fantasy Blog Tour for this month. Read reviews by others of this book at these links:
Brandon Barr
Jim Black
Justin Boyer
Rachel Briard
Karri Compton
Amy Cruson
CSFF Blog Tour
Stacey Dale
D. G. D. Davidson
Jeff Draper
April Erwin
Karina Fabian
Linda Gilmore
Todd Michael Greene
Katie Hart
Ryan Heart
Becky Jesse
Cris Jesse
Jason Joyner
Julie
Carol Keen
Krystine Kercher
Dawn King
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Mirtika
Eve Nielsen (posting later in the week)
Nissa
John W. Otte
Lyn Perry
Crista Richey
Cheryl Russell
Chawna Schroeder
James Somers
Speculative Faith
Rachel Starr Thomson
Robert Treskillard
Steve Trower
Fred Warren
Dona Watson
Phyllis Wheeler
Elizabeth Williams
KM Wilsher