BOOK: Towards the Light and The Mad Quest by Trent P. McDonald (and Peanuts Comics)

Hello Readers,

I wanted to share my top three takeaways from Trent McDonald’s book, Towards the Light and The Mad Quest: Two Novellas – on sale here at Amazon 

Last April, I featured Trent’s book cover – here –   because the artwork reminded me of a painting by Forthemo:

Well today it is time to briefly share about the book.

Go here to see all of Trent’s books

 

__

PRIORHOUSE TOP 3 TAKEAWAYS from Trent’s 2019 book (here): Towards the Light and The Mad Quest: Two Novellas

1) Culture Connections

There are little culture-rich snippets in Trent’s writing. One example from “Towards the Light” was the band Genesis reference and note about Peter Gabriel’s fox costume.  An important part of including culture connections is not assuming that all readers will identify the connection. And so Trent cleverly finds way to enlighten the reader (and I hate when some authors make too many cultural references assuming readers will know – it is almost as annoying as when authors use too many SAT words).  Here is a snippet from the book:

Sample from Towards the Light: Culture Connection Example

2) Seat-of-the-Pants Author Flow

Trent shared in the forward of this book that the two novellas were drafted “by-the-seat-of-pants” mode. To me, this means we receive writing that flowed easily and from the heart. Also, when an experienced author writes with this mode, we have lightness (no pun intended) in the overall feel. Still depth and heavy content, but sometimes we can feel the author’s essence as we flip the pages and in this case, we also get Trent’s social psychology and human connections:

Sample from Towards the Light: Social Psychology Example

 

3) Refreshing Settings and a Bit of Nature Bathing

In the novella The Mad Quest, we have Bravery, changing terrain, hardships, planning, victories on a journey, conversations, dragons, swords, and great setting descriptions that allow getaway and reprieve. This novella reminded me of some parts of Game of Thrones (here) and my son’s (Chad Prior’s) fictional story in Lady by the River (here). However, Trent’s story only slightly reminded me of those other stories because Trent took familiar ideas and elements (a journey, togetherness, cowardice, swords, changing terrain, human conflict, etc.) and gave us a fresh story that allowed us to travel with the characters and get away. And isn’t that one of the main goals of reading fiction – to travel with and grow with the characters. 

Sample from The Quest by Trent McDonald: Nature Bathing Example

… the swamp, which stretched out in a mottled green, seeming to forever to the east. Off to the north was a beige blur, which I knew was a desert. In the far west there was a green blur of the forested ridges of Slore. On the far horizon, there was a dream of clouds that I guessed were the snowy mountains that the little king had mentioned. I tried once to locate where I assumed the dragon’s castle must be, but it was lost in the hazy distance. The land darkened and the stars made their shy appearance, then became bold as the sky went from a deep purple to pitch black.  A noise caught my attention….

The Quest, and maybe aspects of Towards the Light, reminded me of a Genesis song from the album Trent mentioned in the novella (not that I know very much of Genesis’ early music, but enough):

__

__ Let’s close with some comics that Linda shared this week (thanks Linda)

Peanuts sometimes reminds me of Trent and these comics also brought a smile – so I am linking these to Trent’s Weekly Smile (here).  

and….

Thank you Trent –

for the smiles you bring through your writing, your challenge, and your presence in the blogosphere. 

__

This post is also Day 22 of the 31 days to countdown 2020. Wishing you a great day and see you soon with the next countdown post. 

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.