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Choices Meant for Gods, the first in a trilogy by Sandy Lender, was reviewed by Prudy Taylor Board
Sorcerers, dragons, monsters, magic! Choices Meant for Gods, Sandy Lender’s delightful debut novel has them all.
Lender’s protagonist is Chariss, a beautiful young woman born with the mark of the Protector, an amethyst on her cheekbone, high up near the corner of her right eye. However, no one — including Chariss — understands its meaning until she and Master Rothahn travel to Tiurlang and there, in the prophecy scrolls, they uncover not only the stone’s meaning, but her life’s purpose.
As the book opens Chariss and Hrazon, her wizard guardian, flee the evil Lord Drake whose goal is to kill her. She and Hrazon take shelter in the home of Godric Alan Taiman, where she begins a series of lessons — including swordplay with monsters — that train her to guard The Ultimate One.
The pages fly by and they are filled with twists and turns, with quirky, exciting characters who experience the gamut of universal and eternal emotions ranging from love and evil to fear and tremendous courage, from despair to exultant victory. All this and a satisfying ending!
Sandy Lender is personally interesting because she represents the new wave of authors who have embraced the Internet and electronic marketing. This is reportedly the future of book sales — especially for midlist authors. She does the typical signings at bookstores and speaking to clubs, but before this book launched, Lender visited a different blog, web site, author chat room or Yahoo group page every day for two months. She introduced herself, discussed her book, her characters, and created a base of readers and fans.
“As for ‘normal’ online marketing,” she explains, “I’ve got six blogs working that at the moment.” (If you’re not familiar with the term blog, it’s an online journal.) Nigel Taiman, her hero, has an amusing blog listed below.
Choices Meant for Gods is imminently readable. The characters are well drawn, the plot moves quickly. Lender’s worlds are intriguing and believable. An added bonus for younger readers is the absence of profanity and explicit sex. This book ends with the portentous words, “To be continued,” and indeed she’s currently working on the next book in the trilogy. I’ll be looking for it.
You are invited to visit Sandy’s blog or Nigel’s blog.
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