Initiation Rites: The Bones of the Earth, Part 1

by Scott Bury

The Dark Age. The Earth has turned on humanity with earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and a new plague that kills the Roman Emperor himself. Barbarian invasions shatter civilizations. In this chaos, Javor comes of age in a poor, remote village. Try as he might, though, he never fits in with his own people. There is just something about him that keeps him apart from the others. When barbarian raiders kidnap the girl he loves, he takes a mysterious dagger handed down from his great-grandfather and tries to rescue her. But while he's away, a horror that Javor could never believe existed murders his parents and devastates his village. Javor begins his quest for revenge, not realizing that he is entering a war against forces bent on eliminating humanity.

Genres: Historical Fiction

90 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 18, 2011

About the author

Scott Bury can't stay in one category.

After a 20-year career in journalism, he turned to writing fiction. "Sam, the Strawb Part," a children's story, came out in 2011, with all the proceeds going to an autism charity. Next was a paranormal short story for grown-ups, "Dark Clouds."

The Bones of the Earth, a historical fantasy, came out in 2012. It was followed in 2013 with One Shade of Red, an erotic romance.

The Eastern Front trilogy tells the true story of Maurice Bury, a Canadian drafted into the USSR’s Red Army to face the German invasion of the Soviet Union. Army of Worn Soles, the first volume, was published in 2014, followed by Under the Nazi Heel in 2016 and Walking Out of War in 2017.

Scott Bury has been invited to contribute to three Kindle Worlds. For the Jet Kindle World, based on a character created by bestseller Russell Blake, he published Jet – Stealth: A Jet Kindle World Novella in July 2015.

The same week, he published Torn Roots: A Lei Crime Kindle World Novella featuring characters created by bestselling Hawaii crime author Toby Neal. He has since published three more Lei Crime Kindle World books: Palm Trees & Snowflakes (December 2015), Dead Man Lying (2016) and Echoes (2017).

Emily Kimelman, author of the Sydney Rye series, invited Scott to contribute to the Sydney Rye Kindle World. His answer was The Wife Line in 2016, and The Three-Way in 2017.

In between writing books and blog posts, Scott helped found an author's cooperative publishing venture, Independent Authors International. He is also President of author's professional association BestSelling Reads.

He lives in Ottawa with his two mighty sons, two pesky cats and a very understanding wife.

You can find more about Scott Bury, and contact him through his website, http://www.writtenword.ca, his blog, Written Words, and on Twitter @ScottTheWriter.

Reviews

[Patricia Kaniasty · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent story. Full of monsters and gore. The characters reminded me of Indian characters. A nice quick read.

[Jagged · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was a bit disappointed with this read. I had my expectations set a bit high, mainly because of the reviews and the books this was supposed to be in league with.

This was rather rushed and lacked a lot of sense. The "explanations" were rather redundant but didn't really do much explaining. The action scenes were lacking, the dialogue was extremely choppy, and quite frankly, I wasn't convinced of anything about anything.

I would have thought this a children's book had it not been for the sexual content.

I don't know that I'll follow this up. I'm just not feeling it.

[Mark Stone · Rating 2 out of 5]

Tense changes, too many flashbacks, and too much telling rather than showing make this a hard read. Still, this story about an autistic boy does have enough good things that it's convinced me to check out the rest of the series.