Customer Reviews

The Scorpions Strike: Green Stone of Healing® Series - Book Three

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The priests of the powerful Temple of Kronos continue their domination over the Toltec empire because King Kefren is too weak-minded to challenge the fundamentalist wing. The priests accuse Lord James Mordecai of heretical crimes against the Temple of Kronos by violating the purebred code when he sired a half-breed daughter Helen.

Both are punished for this gregarious transgression as James is brutally whipped and the Supreme Lord applies the Toltec death-mark to Helen, which allows a legal murder of her. Although festering with anger, James fails to act for fear of causing a civil war at a time the barbarians are attacking the borders. Meanwhile; Helen's secret lover Colonel Jackson Orlando keeps her alive until with the help of Maguari the Mist-Weaver and Academy Grand Master Isaac Sudras she finds a deadly toxin buried in her father's welts. When her stepmother Lady Samantha Poseidon becomes pregnant Helen saves her life and that of her unborn half-brother from an attack intended to kill Helen as the priests are still after the half-breed.

The third GREEN STONE OF HEALING fantasy is an engaging tale that has a unique feel to the plot as the key lead players are tied up by their ethics. James must choose between the kingdom and his daughter so does nothing beyond feeble protection of his offspring. Helen struggles with her fears for her father and his land as she has become a focus of those who would demonize the opposition; so like her dad is unsure what is best for him and his people. With an easy to manipulate ruler, Temple of Kronos fanatics proclaim religious supremacy enable them to assert heresy even knowing they emaciate the kingdom. Father and daughter only respond to their machinations making for a fascinating entry.

Harriet Klausner

The Toltec nation is in upheaval. Its ruler, Kefren is weak. While well-meaning, he tends to dither and is swayed by fanatical elements and by religious extremists in his council. The high priest, seeking to dominate the Toltecs, has found a weakness in Kefren's most powerful supporter--Lord James who violated the Toltec racial purity regulations and fathered a half-breed daughter, Helen. But his efforts to destroy Lord James and Helen risk the survival of Toltec supremacy as nomadic tribes on the outskirts of the island-continent probe for weakness.

Despite her powerful protectors, Helen is stripped of her medical credentials and marked with the Toltec religious death-mark. As long as Lord James keeps her under his protection, his is weakened by his presumed heresy, but without his protection, Helen will be murdered. Like his king, however, Lord James cannot bring himself to take the steps necessary to protect himself, his family, and ultimately the kingdom. The cost in civil war of a direct assault on the religious establishment would be high indeed.

Author C. L. Talmadge creates an intriguing world with interesting parallels to our own. The well-meaning but ultimately feeble Kefren and Lord James are clearly dooming themselves by their inability to make decisions, to unstick themselves from the uncomfortable places where they find themselves. Helen, who only recently reconciled with her father, Lord James, also finds herself unable to make a decision, unable to move forward, unable to pursue real goals.

THE SCORPION'S STRIKE is a middle novel in the GREEN STONE OF HEALING series and suffers a bit from middle-book sag. Because neither Helen nor Lord James had strong goals, the story is driven by the religious extremists, with Helen and Lord James reacting rather than acting. Unfortunately, this made it difficult for me, as a reader, to get involved in the story or care deeply about the characters. Much of the conflict in the story was completely internal as Helen and others wrestle with their fears and try to make decisions that are unfortunately obvious.

THE SCORPION'S STRIKE shows a lot of potential and interesting world-building. An abundance of characters make for sometimes-confusing continuity, especially perhaps, for those of us who joined the series in the middle, and the essential weakness the protagonists show in this novel make it difficult to really sympathize. On a minor note, use of actual race/culture names for races and cultures in the story (e.g., Toltecs and Nubians) had a tendency to pull me out of the story.

Can energy heal? Has the human race survived global cataclysm before? Is it possible to reunite with loved ones and soul mates? Is reincarnation real? These are just a few of the real-life questions addressed in this wonderful fantasy series . . .

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.

One of the hallmarks of excellence in fiction writing -- at least subjectively for this reviewer -- is that the characters somehow manage to infiltrate our "normal" lives, invading our thoughts when we are driving or at work, haunting that twilight time between wakefulness and sleep, or actually taking on a "real" life parallel to our own. When this sort of character is achieved, when the plot twists and turns become almost factual in our mundane world, it is close to impossible to finish reading the book, set it aside at its conclusion, and heaven-forbid await a sequel to find out what happens next!

By this, the third in C.L. Talmadge's masterful series of novels depicting gripping events that move an undaunted (yet much maligned and mistreated) heroine through trials and tribulations that might make Ulysses blanch, the reader finds herself braced for the disappointment that will surely come at the conclusion, because -- after all -- there can be no satisfactory concluding of events when one is hesitant to relinquish the characters to the purgatory of waiting-for-the-next-volume, anyway.

That said, The Scorpions Strike is face-paced, action-packed and full of surprises. Just when you think you have figured out where these events might be heading, everything you imagined is thrown out the window. How in the world can Helen Andros continue to move ahead in pursuit of well, anything, while she is doomed to carry such a heavy burden? Could any of us persist in the face of such odds and such relentless persecution?

While The Scorpions Strike is indeed a compelling story in and of itself, it is also a parable and an inspiration to those of us in the real 21st-Century world who sometimes feel abandoned with our unspeakable burdens. If we ever feel a moment of self pity, we need only imagine Helen's situation for a glimpse of the strength we might surely find in each of ourselves.

I have a friend, a bright, accomplished and beautiful young woman, who is currently struggling against prejudice and truly appalling obstacles in a Western European country that is surprisingly Neanderthal and chauvinistic in its attitudes toward women, even now in the year 2008. Reading The Scorpions Strike has given me renewed strength to help shore up my friend (albeit from a distance), and it has sharpened my appreciation of how incredible she is being in holding her head high and remaining unswerving in her march toward her goal. Her high principles are intact; her dignity may have suffered at times, but she is persevering. Hooray for Helen Andros and the behaviour-models she has spawned. What an important void this character, and C.L. Talmadge's inspirational story have filled!

~ Anne Garber, evalu8.org