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5.0 out of 5 stars
The second Green Stone of healing tale is a terrific fantasy, February 5, 2010
This review is from: Fallout: Green Stone of Healing® Series - Book Two (Paperback)
On Azgard, Lord James Mordecai recognizes adult physician Helen Andros as his daughter from a liaison with Miriam Andros (see Vision). However, their union is not harmonious as each brings a different past to the father daughter relationship. He demands offspring loyalty and she wants much more from him.
Meanwhile Exalted Lord Toltec King has healed from his debilitating drug induced coma and is interested in Helen's skills as a natural healer and as a surgeon as she brought him back to the living. He orders her to marry her second cousin Lord Justin Atlas. She now knows the Green Stone she wears enhances her medical abilities, but is unsure why. However, she is worried about what will happen to her father, who stands trial for seditious acts. At the same time Justin's father Prince Enoch Atlas believes he is finding the secrets of the priests of the Temple of Kronos in the use of life and death kura energy, which if successful will further his ambition.
The second Green Stone of healing tale is a terrific fantasy starring a large cast held strongly together by the confused heroine. The story line is fast-paced throughout and never slows although much goes on in several subplots. Enoch is a great villain with plans to raise himself and his House to the Exalted Lord level as C.L. Talmadge continues to expand on her deep political fantasy that requires the audience to read the first tale in what is so far a great saga.
Harriet
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5.0 out of 5 stars
The adventure continues: Fallout, Book Two, May 4, 2009
This review is from: Fallout: Green Stone of Healing® Series - Book Two (Paperback)
Green Stone of Healing is a fast-moving, complex fantasy series that follows four generations of strong women and the mysterious green stone that binds them to their people and culture as well as to each other. The second book in the series -- Fallout -- examines the consequences of the actions of the central figure (Helen Andros -- an opinionated, tough-minded physician who wears a mysterious green stone) and the complex familial and interpersonal dynamics her breaking with tradition bring upon all within her orbit. A very human heroine, Helen is trapped by forces from within as well as without. Again, her temper and her fierce stubbornness against conformity bring her challenges she is not certain she is up to facing; but within herself, she discovers great depths of compassion, wisdom and perseverance that stand her in good stead. Highly inventive and wonderfully organized, this is a new book that will surely sweep you away.
The Green Stone itself possesses mystical properties of healing and protection; it is an energy-healing crystal used to mend everything from broken bones and broken hearts, and to shield against missiles or render them undetectable. Although Helen is the guardian of the stone, she is also emotionally wounded and vulnerable, an illegitimate orphan in Azgard, a lost civilization sharply divided by race and rank.
As in the first book, as Helen becomes more deeply snared in other people's webs of fear, deceit and power-grabbing, she again becomes the focus of negative --and unwanted -- attention from the priests, rulers and military officers of her society. The Green Stone of Healing is destined to change her entire society, not just Helen, yet our curiosity as readers just draws us deeper and deeper into the mystery surrounding the stone, without quelling our desires to know. To enjoy this book, you really must start with the first book -- The Vision: Green Stone of Healing Book One -- (and keep it handy as a reference); it is not meant to be read out-of-sequence. My biggest problem with this second book is how long I must now wait for Number Three, and some of the answers to the mysteries within!
If you were enamoured of The Vision, you will find this second book just as gripping a "page-turner," and the characters even more deeply and convincingly drawn. Mysterious twists and turns make for absorbing reading.
In this "episode," the Exalted Lord, whom Helen rescues from a drug-induced stupor, orders Helen to be bound in marriage to Helen's half-breed second cousin. The union is a purely political move designed to bolster Helen's standing. Helen secretly loves her former commanding officer, now her bodyguard; and she and her new husband share yet another secret.
Do make use of the glossary at the back of the book, as there is an extensive cast of characters that run the gamut from well-meaning, conflicted heroes like Lord James and Lord Matthew and ruthless, cruel and corrupt villains like Prince Enoch. And, of course, you can keep straight the relationship between Helen and each of these players, as well. ~ Anne Garber, evalu8.org
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4.0 out of 5 stars
Book 2 of the Green Stone Healing Series, July 20, 2008
This review is from: Fallout: Green Stone of Healing® Series - Book Two (Paperback)
Helen Andros is now, in this second novel of the Green Stone Healing Series, the recognized daughter of Lord James Mordecai. It's a relationship that seems to cause trouble for everyone associated with either character. If that's not enough, Helen continues to create havoc by her frequent verbal comments guaranteed to boomerang into the most excruciating, almost sadistic, punishments. Self-sabotaging tendencies? It seems so far too often with her "foot in mouth" slips.
The political in-fighting that began in The Vision has now entered a new level with the healing of the Exalted Lord, the Toltec King who is now interested in Helen's natural and surgical healing treatment of Lord Matthew and others as well as the upcoming trial of her shamed father, James.
But the hidden yet pivotal conflict centers around who will control the knowledge and use of kura, a type of energy that could both heal and kill. That knowledge presently resides with the Temple priests but Prince Enoch Atlas comes upon a document that makes him imagine the huge political and military power behind this mystical, invisible reality.
Helen over time realizes her green healing stone has something to do with her healing powers but still doesn't grasp its far-ranging capabilities to assist her in utilizing greater spiritual power even beyond her present medical practice. At the moment all she can do is torturously ponder her father's demand that she submit to his military and paternal authority, while he must wrestle with the need to show this long-lost daughter love and acknowledged respect for the healing profession to which she is so fervently attached. Indeed, it's her single claim to dignity. Helen learns more, though, about relationships that will expand her present, confined status.
How will it all end - or begin? Although Fallout has a bit much of unbelievably cruel punishments and recovery scenes, the rest of the story still compels the reader's interest to wonder how the micro and macro conflicts of powerful control versus empathic healing love will be resolved.
Reviewed by Viviane Crystal on July 20, 2008
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