What do you think?
Rate this book
Rising
"Rising is the unforgiving tale of a man damaged by my actions.
His character is my sin and this story is my confession."
WARNING: This book contains strong language, violence and psychologically harrowing scenes. If you find such content offensive please don't download this book.
His character is my sin and this story is my confession."
WARNING: This book contains strong language, violence and psychologically harrowing scenes. If you find such content offensive please don't download this book.
- GenresRomance
408 pages, Kindle Edition
First published August 15, 2013
About the author
Elizabeth Marshall
8 books120 followersElizabeth Marshall is the pen name of the author of the ‘Highland Secret Series’. She was born on Christmas Eve at St Mary’s Hospital, at the Marianhill Monastery, in the province of Natal, South Africa.
Elizabeth grew up in a small village called Hillcrest surrounded by a large Scottish farming family.
Her primary education was delivered by Nuns from the Monastery in which she was born. The teaching that Elizabeth received during her primary school days provided an invaluable foundation and grounding.
Smiling, Elizabeth recalls a gift, presented to her by Sister Domianis at the end of a school year. It was a prayer card and on it was simply written the word – Patience.
Through secondary school and into adult-hood, Elizabeth’s life centred on a love of reading, music, writing and history.
A hopeless romantic and dreamer with a head full of stories, Elizabeth wanted desperately to write.
Many real adventures later and Elizabeth is now living in the land of her ancestors and telling the stories she was born to tell.
Elizabeth grew up in a small village called Hillcrest surrounded by a large Scottish farming family.
Her primary education was delivered by Nuns from the Monastery in which she was born. The teaching that Elizabeth received during her primary school days provided an invaluable foundation and grounding.
Smiling, Elizabeth recalls a gift, presented to her by Sister Domianis at the end of a school year. It was a prayer card and on it was simply written the word – Patience.
Through secondary school and into adult-hood, Elizabeth’s life centred on a love of reading, music, writing and history.
A hopeless romantic and dreamer with a head full of stories, Elizabeth wanted desperately to write.
Many real adventures later and Elizabeth is now living in the land of her ancestors and telling the stories she was born to tell.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
August 17, 2013
“Rising” by Elizabeth Marshall begins with the life of Brody, a who is raised by a woman who is not his natural mother who had to give up her natural son to be raised by others. As the boy grows up, he has an irrational intolerance for his family, and later his friends. While demonstrating intelligence and aptitude to do anything he wants to do, he realizes most things he wants come easier to him than most around him.
When he becomes older, his irritation with his family and friends changes to absolute hatred leading him down a dark path of murder and treachery. He finds himself in a place in Scotland that exists outside of the time he once lived and meets many people that knew his natural mother, meets and faces the consequences with his natural father, and the son of the woman that raised him instead. Brody remains incapable of opening his heart and changing his ways. By the story’s end, the Brody finds that evil does come full circle, that horrific energy expelled may nourish something else altogether, creating another power.
“Rising” is a complex and clever ride, taking the reader not only into darkness, but also through time. It is a skillful character study of how good becomes evil, how neutral remains neutral, and how good arises from it all. Five stars!
When he becomes older, his irritation with his family and friends changes to absolute hatred leading him down a dark path of murder and treachery. He finds himself in a place in Scotland that exists outside of the time he once lived and meets many people that knew his natural mother, meets and faces the consequences with his natural father, and the son of the woman that raised him instead. Brody remains incapable of opening his heart and changing his ways. By the story’s end, the Brody finds that evil does come full circle, that horrific energy expelled may nourish something else altogether, creating another power.
“Rising” is a complex and clever ride, taking the reader not only into darkness, but also through time. It is a skillful character study of how good becomes evil, how neutral remains neutral, and how good arises from it all. Five stars!
April 21, 2014
I liked this book - I really did. It's dark, gritty and in-your-face without a hint of apology. My type of fare, because that's what I write- and that's what I like to read. I kept thinking in my head - 'this is like (really) dark Harry Potter'. I say it a lot in my reviews, but everything is derivative of something. And a good portion of this book 'feels' to me like Harry Potter if he had stepped over to the dark side. Not saying that's bad, just making an observation. It makes for an interesting read, nonetheless.
The characters were (mostly) well-rounded, and (mostly) served their purpose. They definitely kept within their own molds, which is always a good thing. Some of them seemed rather redundant, and because they were there, it chewed up more real estate than I thought was necessary. In essence, the book did tend to drag a bit for the first half. Luckily, however, the story picked up and left me turning pages like mad to get to the end.
What I found numbing and most disappointing, however, were the number of typos and syntax errors in this novel. To the point of deducting an entire star in rating (I would have done more, but I thought the story deserved it's own due regardless of it's poor editing). To the reviewer(s) that questioned someone else's observation of the same, I say to you - 'you obviously weren't paying attention'. But then, I'm a writer, so these things stick out to me like nobody's business. (examples, because I know you want them - 'sliver' vs. 'silver', 'routed' vs. 'rooted', 'decent' vs. 'descent', missing and/or extraneous quotations, missing verbs in dialogue, inconsistency in scenes (Brody and Robert were outside in the Village, yet Robert looked down at the 'floor' - huh?)) Worst of all, several instances of repetitive narrative and/or descriptors slowed my enjoyment. ('shone' used twice in once sentence, as was 'always'. Not a big rule violation, but makes the flow very awkward) It's pretty obvious the author never read the story aloud to herself or others. (Casual word of advice - ALWAYS read your story aloud, even if it IS to yourself. You'd be amazed at the number of errors you will find)
All of that said, there is absolutely no excuse for the volume of mistakes that I found throughout the text, and quite honestly, because the first half of the book seemed to drag a bit, I only stared noticing the errors from 50% onward. And with the amount that I found, I'm certain that the first half had an equal amount, as well.
Overall, I would recommend this book purely on the content of the story itself - despite it's atrocious editing. It surprised me to find out that this wasn't the author's first work. But then, I didn't read her first, either - so maybe this is better. I hope so.
The characters were (mostly) well-rounded, and (mostly) served their purpose. They definitely kept within their own molds, which is always a good thing. Some of them seemed rather redundant, and because they were there, it chewed up more real estate than I thought was necessary. In essence, the book did tend to drag a bit for the first half. Luckily, however, the story picked up and left me turning pages like mad to get to the end.
What I found numbing and most disappointing, however, were the number of typos and syntax errors in this novel. To the point of deducting an entire star in rating (I would have done more, but I thought the story deserved it's own due regardless of it's poor editing). To the reviewer(s) that questioned someone else's observation of the same, I say to you - 'you obviously weren't paying attention'. But then, I'm a writer, so these things stick out to me like nobody's business. (examples, because I know you want them - 'sliver' vs. 'silver', 'routed' vs. 'rooted', 'decent' vs. 'descent', missing and/or extraneous quotations, missing verbs in dialogue, inconsistency in scenes (Brody and Robert were outside in the Village, yet Robert looked down at the 'floor' - huh?)) Worst of all, several instances of repetitive narrative and/or descriptors slowed my enjoyment. ('shone' used twice in once sentence, as was 'always'. Not a big rule violation, but makes the flow very awkward) It's pretty obvious the author never read the story aloud to herself or others. (Casual word of advice - ALWAYS read your story aloud, even if it IS to yourself. You'd be amazed at the number of errors you will find)
All of that said, there is absolutely no excuse for the volume of mistakes that I found throughout the text, and quite honestly, because the first half of the book seemed to drag a bit, I only stared noticing the errors from 50% onward. And with the amount that I found, I'm certain that the first half had an equal amount, as well.
Overall, I would recommend this book purely on the content of the story itself - despite it's atrocious editing. It surprised me to find out that this wasn't the author's first work. But then, I didn't read her first, either - so maybe this is better. I hope so.
September 21, 2013
Wow what a story indeed. I loved it, but hated to see it end. The author can sure throw a curve at the end. The stag and Marta used Brody for both their own ends.
Yes, Brody was evil right from the time he was born but that was the fault of the stag to let it get out of hand. He could of sort of stopped it. Brody had no say in his life. Now the ending I did not see coming. All I can say is Wow what a book this is. The one that have followed it from the beginning will love it. The author has really created a villain out of Brody. Now that is a villain I felt sort of sorry for... He wanted to be loved but didn't know how. I just loved this one.
I really would recommend this book. To get the feel you need to read the whole series. You will not regret reading this book
Yes, Brody was evil right from the time he was born but that was the fault of the stag to let it get out of hand. He could of sort of stopped it. Brody had no say in his life. Now the ending I did not see coming. All I can say is Wow what a book this is. The one that have followed it from the beginning will love it. The author has really created a villain out of Brody. Now that is a villain I felt sort of sorry for... He wanted to be loved but didn't know how. I just loved this one.
I really would recommend this book. To get the feel you need to read the whole series. You will not regret reading this book
May 4, 2014
Clever; Compelling; Complex
------------------------------------------
She had me at the title. RISING. Precisely, elegantly foreboding...and it didn't lie. Strange occurrences in a strange world...or was it our world? And if so, in what era? It all felt mysterious. Characters revealed themselves, sometimes instantly, more often slowly over many chapters. I got to know one young individual early on, only to realize he was still grey to me. He seemed to be changing, or at least was inconsistent...and that proved to be by clever design. It's not an easy thing to demonstrate an inconsistent, polarized, fractured personality in literature; too many readers are tempted to assume the telling is flawed, and yet in this case I'd call it guts and genius. That particular character took as long for me to get to know as a real prodigy with a disfunctionally fragmented personality might take. And Marshall pulled it off, which I found impressive.
Other characters came to be my favorites--mostly the steady, the courageous, the honorable. At some point I realized that some of them had appeared in other works of Marshall's that I've read in the past; RISING does stand alone, but is clearly still part of a much larger vision interwoven through multiple books, some of which may still be yet to appear. Like the work of Tolkien, Martin, Rowling, and others, I think there is some master plan...there's someone out there at a true Creator's vantage point, and we're in her hands.
The story itself exhibits courage in the sense that it works numerous complex tenets thematically into the saga--the clash between priorities of the greater good vs. the self, the value of interpersonal equity and mutual respect (and the wages of abandoning them), the duality of a person being simultaneously his or her own greatest ally and worst enemy, the notion that one's destiny is ultimately self-guided, the lesson that it's never too late to amend old errors. It reveals that, though strong powers...even magic...may exist, none of it will ever overbalance the impact of character, dignity and courage.
Stylistically and linguistically, this book was a joy. Not every sentence can be pure poetry in a volume this large of course, but so often I found bits of dialog and dramatically descriptive phrases so delicious I went back and savored them again.
I won't do anything so clumsy as to outline the story here; a book is its own best summary. I'll say I appreciated the ways in which strange things happened--creatively different, yet not contrivedly so. That aspect was visual, and still graceful--it transcended gimmicks or the mundane. I liked that.
Stay with Marshall on this one; accept what you're given and when, let it be in charge, and let it flow. It begins as a painter might--a lightly bold brush stroke or two, then a lot of careful portraiture skill applied, then some deep but slightly blurry background to corroborate the many subtle hints and clues...and then the artist picks up the easel and swings it at your head.
Okay, maybe Rembrandt stopped short of that, but Marshall will not spare you. Go into this book with intent to enjoy and to appreciate the skill and the tale, and you'll not be disappointed. I think this is Marshall at her best.
------------------------------------------
She had me at the title. RISING. Precisely, elegantly foreboding...and it didn't lie. Strange occurrences in a strange world...or was it our world? And if so, in what era? It all felt mysterious. Characters revealed themselves, sometimes instantly, more often slowly over many chapters. I got to know one young individual early on, only to realize he was still grey to me. He seemed to be changing, or at least was inconsistent...and that proved to be by clever design. It's not an easy thing to demonstrate an inconsistent, polarized, fractured personality in literature; too many readers are tempted to assume the telling is flawed, and yet in this case I'd call it guts and genius. That particular character took as long for me to get to know as a real prodigy with a disfunctionally fragmented personality might take. And Marshall pulled it off, which I found impressive.
Other characters came to be my favorites--mostly the steady, the courageous, the honorable. At some point I realized that some of them had appeared in other works of Marshall's that I've read in the past; RISING does stand alone, but is clearly still part of a much larger vision interwoven through multiple books, some of which may still be yet to appear. Like the work of Tolkien, Martin, Rowling, and others, I think there is some master plan...there's someone out there at a true Creator's vantage point, and we're in her hands.
The story itself exhibits courage in the sense that it works numerous complex tenets thematically into the saga--the clash between priorities of the greater good vs. the self, the value of interpersonal equity and mutual respect (and the wages of abandoning them), the duality of a person being simultaneously his or her own greatest ally and worst enemy, the notion that one's destiny is ultimately self-guided, the lesson that it's never too late to amend old errors. It reveals that, though strong powers...even magic...may exist, none of it will ever overbalance the impact of character, dignity and courage.
Stylistically and linguistically, this book was a joy. Not every sentence can be pure poetry in a volume this large of course, but so often I found bits of dialog and dramatically descriptive phrases so delicious I went back and savored them again.
I won't do anything so clumsy as to outline the story here; a book is its own best summary. I'll say I appreciated the ways in which strange things happened--creatively different, yet not contrivedly so. That aspect was visual, and still graceful--it transcended gimmicks or the mundane. I liked that.
Stay with Marshall on this one; accept what you're given and when, let it be in charge, and let it flow. It begins as a painter might--a lightly bold brush stroke or two, then a lot of careful portraiture skill applied, then some deep but slightly blurry background to corroborate the many subtle hints and clues...and then the artist picks up the easel and swings it at your head.
Okay, maybe Rembrandt stopped short of that, but Marshall will not spare you. Go into this book with intent to enjoy and to appreciate the skill and the tale, and you'll not be disappointed. I think this is Marshall at her best.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews