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The Golden Child Trilogy #3
The Warrior Dead
Vanessa McBride learned strange things while she was studying sorcery in Africa: she even discovered how to raise the dead from their graves. She knows Thavy’s two sons are coming home, and she senses danger. Sammy and his brother want to save their mother from Vanessa’s control, and they will kill whoever tries to stop them. The Golden Child has now acquired dreadful powers. Vanessa hides Thavy deep in the African bush, in a rebel stronghold defended by the oldest magic on earth. Sammy’s army of the dead will challenge them there, in a battle for the ultimate prize.
230 pages, Paperback
Published June 10, 2016
1 person is currently reading
About the author
Cameron Macauley
10 books21 followersCameron Macauley has published short fiction in Prism International, The North American Review, The Sonora Review and Quick Fiction. After getting degrees in anthropology, psychology, and medical science, Cameron Macauley spent thirty years working in disaster relief and international health. During his career he has worked in a refugee camp in Thailand, a besieged city in Angola, a Yanomami Indian village in Brazil, and a mission hospital in Sumatra.
He teaches at James Madison University.
He has co-authored two novels with his father Robie Macauley: CITADEL OF ICE (2014), and THE ESCAPE OF ALFRED DREYFUS (2016), both from unpublished manuscripts found after Robie's death in 1995.
His short story collection is SIGHTSEEING IN HELL (2017).
Cameron is also the author of a supernatural adventure series, THE GOLDEN CHILD TRILOGY: THE TALISMAN CHILD (2014) and THE FOREST OF REGRETS (2015), and THE WARRIOR DEAD (2016). The complete trilogy is available in a single volume, UNBORN EVIL (2016).
He teaches at James Madison University.
He has co-authored two novels with his father Robie Macauley: CITADEL OF ICE (2014), and THE ESCAPE OF ALFRED DREYFUS (2016), both from unpublished manuscripts found after Robie's death in 1995.
His short story collection is SIGHTSEEING IN HELL (2017).
Cameron is also the author of a supernatural adventure series, THE GOLDEN CHILD TRILOGY: THE TALISMAN CHILD (2014) and THE FOREST OF REGRETS (2015), and THE WARRIOR DEAD (2016). The complete trilogy is available in a single volume, UNBORN EVIL (2016).
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
July 25, 2016
A delightful conclusion to the Golden Child Trilogy (The Talisman Child and The Forest of Regrets are the first two volumes), the story picks up with Thavy, alone and impoverished, mourning the death of her infant daughter Luna. After divorcing Sammy's father Tack, she is working in a coffee shop and leading a lonely existence until she meets Vanessa. Vanessa, who is the same age, was born in Mozambique and adopted by American missionaries from Massachusetts. She has just gotten out of prison, and as she and Thavy become friends, she tells her story in detail.
Vanessa was kidnapped by her grandfather, a sorcerer named Mbegweko, and trained as a witch. She developed amazing powers, but had to help her grandfather battle his brother and another sorcerer named Shulu, a fight that led to Mbegweko's death. Vanessa went to the US with her foster parents as a way of escaping, but at 18 she became a professional exorcist and earned a living expelling demons. Eventually Shulu caught up her, however, and she ended up in prison. Now, three years later, she's out on parole looking to regain her powers and her life.
But she senses something peculiar in Thavy's life, and realizes that Sammy has undergone a weird transformation under the influence of his ghostly brother Koan. They are coming home to find Thavy and something terrible will happen. After a fierce battle in an apartment in Boston, Vanessa decides to take Thavy with her to Africa, but they are pursued by Sammy and Koan. The final battle takes place in a remote military base in the African bush, where an army of animated corpses assaults a mountain where Thavy, Vanessa, Stone, and their friends are hidden inside a cavern.
As in the first two volumes, there's a lot of witchcraft here, this time of the African variety. Action is swift and there is quite a bit of suspense as Sammy is gradually taken over by the evil Koan. Unlike the previous volumes, this story is told from different points of view: Thavy, Vanessa, Thavy's old boyfriend Stone, and of course Sammy. Familiar themes evolve: kidnapping, communication with the dead, rituals and magic with an exotic flavor.
There's a complex and wonderful story here, plus a lot of great detail about African witchcraft, and lots of undead warriors. The scenes are marvelously evocative with careful rendering of sights, sounds and smells--it's clear that the author has visited all the places he uses in his books, and actually knows what a rebel camp or an Indian village are like. At the end, I was truly sorry that it was all over. I hope the author takes up these characters and uses them in another series.
The whole trilogy is now available in one volume at Unborn Evil: The Complete Golden Child Trilogy.
Vanessa was kidnapped by her grandfather, a sorcerer named Mbegweko, and trained as a witch. She developed amazing powers, but had to help her grandfather battle his brother and another sorcerer named Shulu, a fight that led to Mbegweko's death. Vanessa went to the US with her foster parents as a way of escaping, but at 18 she became a professional exorcist and earned a living expelling demons. Eventually Shulu caught up her, however, and she ended up in prison. Now, three years later, she's out on parole looking to regain her powers and her life.
But she senses something peculiar in Thavy's life, and realizes that Sammy has undergone a weird transformation under the influence of his ghostly brother Koan. They are coming home to find Thavy and something terrible will happen. After a fierce battle in an apartment in Boston, Vanessa decides to take Thavy with her to Africa, but they are pursued by Sammy and Koan. The final battle takes place in a remote military base in the African bush, where an army of animated corpses assaults a mountain where Thavy, Vanessa, Stone, and their friends are hidden inside a cavern.
As in the first two volumes, there's a lot of witchcraft here, this time of the African variety. Action is swift and there is quite a bit of suspense as Sammy is gradually taken over by the evil Koan. Unlike the previous volumes, this story is told from different points of view: Thavy, Vanessa, Thavy's old boyfriend Stone, and of course Sammy. Familiar themes evolve: kidnapping, communication with the dead, rituals and magic with an exotic flavor.
There's a complex and wonderful story here, plus a lot of great detail about African witchcraft, and lots of undead warriors. The scenes are marvelously evocative with careful rendering of sights, sounds and smells--it's clear that the author has visited all the places he uses in his books, and actually knows what a rebel camp or an Indian village are like. At the end, I was truly sorry that it was all over. I hope the author takes up these characters and uses them in another series.
The whole trilogy is now available in one volume at Unborn Evil: The Complete Golden Child Trilogy.
Displaying 1 of 1 review