Happy Guy Fawkes Day!
Today seems to be the perfect day to highlight one of my favorite authors – Nadine Brandes (mainly because she wrote a book about Guy Fawkes Day).
She has written a total of five books (That’s a lot of work! I’ve tried to write a novel!), and they are all good reads. Her books in the Out of Time Trilogy are A Time to Die, A Time to Speak and A Time to Rise. Her two historical standalones are called Fawkes and Romanov. These all link to Amazon.
I first became aware of this author when I read A Time to Die in literature class. It left off on a terrible cliff hanger, so I read the next two in the series. The summary for all three books can be found here. It’s a link to the author’s website.
This trilogy is Christian young adult fiction. The young adult genre is notorious for being inappropriate and full of things people don’t need to read. Nadine Brandes did a pretty good job staying away from that. There are a few things that would be considered slightly off color for younger readers, but all in all, these books are pretty good.
I love reading about Parvin. In many ways, she is like me – with a desire to do something big that honors God, but struggling to push the fear of speaking to people about God away. The story is expertly crafted with some of the best written characters I’ve seen.
I would recommend reading this series if you are in high school and don’t mind some violence. These book definitely contain a lot of suspense, a fair bit of violence, and a few inappropriate comments, but they are really well written and show a genuine love for Christ. They are also the cleanest young adult books I have read. I really don’t like inappropriate things, and I stay away from watching movies, reading books, and listening to songs that are inappropriate and/or contain a lot of swear words. I have read one or two young adult books and couldn’t get past the first page of some of them. These are definitely a step up from that.
Ms. Brandes’s next book is a standalone historical fiction fantasy called Fawkes. It is also really well written. This story follows Thomas Fawkes, son of Guy Fawkes, as he tries to get his mask and takes part in the Gun Powder Plot (If you don’t understand that sentence, I recommend clicking here for the summary. It links to the author’s blog.).
This book is also pretty clean, although it has some violence, and I recommend it for the same age group as I did for above. I will say, however, that unlike the Out of Time series, this book is a historical fantasy fiction, so if you don’t like that genre, you might not like this book.
Her next standalone is Romanov. As you can probably guess from the title, it’s an Anastasia retelling. This one is shorter than her previous books and is pretty clean, but does have some violence. I feel like the author had to rush somewhat while writting it, but the characters are still colorful and the magic in the story is really cool. Here is the link for the summary. It links to Amazon. It has the same recommendation specifics as Fawkes.
In all these books there is a love story. I am not a fan of love stories, and the ones in her books are a main facet of the story, but they are well written and are done in a fairly godly way.
Check her books out! I really enjoyed them. She is a talented author. 🙂
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