"The Land of Darkness" Giveaway Winner

Yes, we have a winner in the giveaway of an autographed copy of C.S. Lakin's The Land of Darkness, the third of her novels in the Gates of Heaven series. (I thought there were to be five in the series, but it turns out there will be seven, which is all the better, in my opinion. I love these books.)

I used a very scientifically random process to select the winner.

First, you had to leave a comment on the giveaway post, citing your favorite favorite tale. (The favorites named were fairly diverse but certain words like Narnia and Lord of the Rings kept creeping in.)

The deadline was 6 p.m. Central time last night.

After the deadline passed, I numbered the comments in the order they were posted, wrote the numbers on slips of paper,  placed the slips in a hat, messed them all around with my hand, and then, with eyes closed, pulled one out. How more scientific can you get, right? Well, it was random, and fair.

And out of the hat came the slip numbered 3 -- Karen Kyle Ericson, a photographer who blogs under her own name. Congratulations, Karen! You are about to enter the Land of Darkness. Well, no, I didn't mean it that way. How about, you are about to enter the Gates of Heaven? Uh, no, that doesn't quite work either.

How about: you are about to receive one greatly enjoyable book to read, and you will likely go look for the others in the series already published -- The Wolf of Tebron and The Map Across Time.

Thanks to C.S. Lakin for providing the autographed copy.

"The Land of Darkness" -- A Giveaway

I can still remember being a young child and having my mother read Grimm’s Fairy Tales to me from a thin but oversized volume with a green cover. I still have the book, and am embarrassed to see that I also used it as a coloring book. But except for the Lord of the Rings novels (read first on college) and the Chronicles of Narnia (read first when my oldest was six), Grimm’s Fairy Tales were my only exposure to the genre of fantasy.

For some months now, I’ve been reading C.S. Lakin’s “Gates of Heaven” series – The Wolf of Tebron, The Map Across Time and The Land of Darkness. Officially they fall into the fantasy genre, but Lakin calls them fairy tales. I’m inclined to agree with her.

Fantasy is not the kind of fiction I usually read, but it is one, thanks to Lakin and Ian Thomas Curtis's The Canticles of Andurun: Dragonsong, that I’ve come to appreciate and enjoy. The sheer creativity of inventing an entire new world of characters, culture, geography and history is impressive, particularly when it’s done well. Lakin does it well. What I find particularly engaging in her novels is how she weaves the story of faith into the narrative in such a way as to make this new world familiar. And I’ve become a fan.

To introduce others to the “Gates of Heaven” novels, we’re doing a giveaway of an autographed copy of The Land of Darkness. The three novels are not consecutive; they can be read independently or in any order. They share geography, culture and history, but they are actually stand-alone novels as well.

To participate in the giveaway, all you have to do is leave a comment here with the title of your favorite fairy tale. That’s it. I like the “pull a number from a hat” approach and what I do is number the comments, place individual numbered slips of paper in a hat, and pull one out – about as random as you can get. But I think it will be fun to see what fairy tales people might cite.

To be eligible for the giveaway, leave your comment here by Friday, Dec. 2 at 6 p.m. Central time. I’ll pull the number from a hat and announce the winner here.

Even if you don’t win, I think you’ll find the entire series of the “Gates of Heaven” rewarding reading. I’m looking forward to the final two novels when they’re published in 2012.

Related:

My review of The Wolf of Tebron.

My review of The Map Across Time.

My review of The Land of Darkness.

C.S. Lakin's "The Land of Darkness"

 I’m becoming a real fan of fantasy.

C. S. Lakin has now published The Land of Darkness, her third novel in the “Gates of Heaven” series. The three stories stand as independent novels, linked by the world and geography Lakin has created and a fshared characters.

Somehow, the stories are getting better. And I really enjoyed the first two novels, The Wolf of Tebron and The Map Across Time.

Each of the novels are subtitled “fairy tales,” and this description becomes especially pointed in The Land of Darkness. The story has everything a (grown-up) kid could want – mysterious creatures, a quest, a story that never falters and even a wicked stepmother and two ugly stepsisters (yes, I know that’s politically incorrect, but that’s the story). And it’s all wonderful.

Jadiel, a 12-year-old girl, lives with her wealthy father and stepmother on a spacious farm. The stepmother is not what she seems, and finds way to bewitch the father while she steps up her mistreatment of and cruelty to Jadiel. After several unsuccessful attempts to kill the girl, the stepmother sends her off to find the leaves of the terebinth tree, which no one seems to have heard of. If Jadiel fails in her quest, the stepmother will kill her father.

Callen, a young man not much older than Jadiel, works for the girl’s aunt and uncle. He becomes interested in old parchment drawings of a bridge, with words inscribed in an unknown language and the drawing of a giant tree. He leaves for the capital city of Sherbourne (which was the major setting of The Map Across Time) – and finds himself rescuing Jadiel from kidnappers.

Together, Callen and Jadiel embark upon a quest, she to save her father and he to find the bridge. Eventually they are joined by an old, scarred guide named Ebed, who directs them forward both geographically and spiritually.

The reader comes to understand that whatever else The Land of Darkness is, it is the story of a spiritual quest, one that transcends the fantasy it’s set within to become something very recognizable – the meaning of faith.

It’s a delightful, enchanting story. Even with the wicked stepmother.

Related:

My review of The Wolf of Tebron.

My review of The Map Across Time.