Harper Swan

If you liked Jean Auel’s Earth’s Children series, or Kathleen Flannigan’s Misfits and Heroes, and you like fast reads, you will probably enjoy Harper Swan’s Raven’s Choice. First in the Replacement Chronicles, it blends past and present, combining stories of cause with effect as a young man at a present day conference learns the mysteries hidden in DNA.

Back in the past, a young woman who feels as surely out of place as her present-day counterpart, faces the struggle to fit into a changing society without the protection of a husband. The story is starkly true to life, well-researched, and pleasingly convincing. Raven has a choice to make, and someone always has to be first; someone must surely be the ancestor, and the ancestor’s decision might ring its results over farflung times.

By the end of this novella, Raven’s unclear future has a definite direction. Readers will be satisfied to have seen and guessed her choice, but will still want more. Hopefully that is what the author will offer. But this bite-sized piece stands alone as an intriguing, fast-told novella of small decisions and major implications, in a convincingly drawn, hard and beautiful, distant world.

Disclosure: I was given a free ecopy and I offer my honest review.… (mais)