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Green Stone of Healing #1
The Vision
Green Stone of Healing is an epic fantasy featuring four generations of strong female characters who inherit a gem that mends broken bones and broken hearts, shields or renders its wearer undetectable. Book 1: The Vision launches the series with Lieutenant Helen Andros, an opinionated, tough-minded physician who wears a mysterious green stone. Helen is also emotionally wounded and vulnerable, an illegitimate orphan in Azgard, a nation divided by race and rank. Helen is a formidable protagonist. -Kirkus Reviews Those who love deep intricate stories, full of mystery and action, dripping with power struggles and battles for dominion, this work is for you. -Shirley P. Johnson, Midwest Book Review, Amazon.com ., it's a gripping page-turner, and the characters are well-drawn and convincing. The story is compelling and quite captivating. -Anne Garber, evalu8.or
- GenresFantasy
240 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2005
15 people want to read
About the author
C.L. Talmadge
4 books12 followersThis author is also published under Candace L. Talmadge.
Readers who want to be caught up in the collision of politics, passion, and piety are flocking to the Green Stone of Healing® speculative fiction series by C.L. Talmadge. It’s a romantic insider’s tale of how greed and lust for power destroyed all traces of a once mighty nation.
C.L. has been a professional writer since 1976. Nearly three decades ago, she encountered an alternative healing method called Sunan therapy that enabled her to resolve many of her emotional and spiritual wounds. This therapy also helped her become familiar with the intimate link between spirituality, energy, and healing.
Sunan therapy also introduced her to some of her past lives and those of family and friends.Her multi-generational novels are based on two of C.L.'s past lives and the past lives of loved ones and acquaintances.
Under the byline Candace L. Talmadge, she publishes spiritual self-help books that she co-authors with her partner.
Readers who want to be caught up in the collision of politics, passion, and piety are flocking to the Green Stone of Healing® speculative fiction series by C.L. Talmadge. It’s a romantic insider’s tale of how greed and lust for power destroyed all traces of a once mighty nation.
C.L. has been a professional writer since 1976. Nearly three decades ago, she encountered an alternative healing method called Sunan therapy that enabled her to resolve many of her emotional and spiritual wounds. This therapy also helped her become familiar with the intimate link between spirituality, energy, and healing.
Sunan therapy also introduced her to some of her past lives and those of family and friends.Her multi-generational novels are based on two of C.L.'s past lives and the past lives of loved ones and acquaintances.
Under the byline Candace L. Talmadge, she publishes spiritual self-help books that she co-authors with her partner.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
May 8, 2015
This book is a fucking soap opera. This guy's banging that chick. Some other guy wants to fuck some dude. And of course, there's plenty of surprise relationships that aren't surprises at all. Oh noes, that chick is that dude's daughter. Who the fuck cares?
This story is mostly about royalty and politics. Some military doctor chick is tasked with saving a prince who had a heart attack. Everyone just assumed he was dead. And he was for a few minutes, but the doctor chick brought him back. Now he's a zombie prince. Yay!
But wait, this doctor chick isn't even royalty. What the fuck is she even doing on the grounds? That's sacrilege! Arrest her at once! And so they do, and like a third of this fucking book is dedicated to her trial for stepping on sacred ground. A capital offense. Really? You're gonna put some hot chick to death because she stepped foot in your secret garden? That's fucking retarded.
Of course she's convicted, and sentenced to death. But come on, she's the main character in this story, and frankly, the only interesting one. She's not going to fucking die. You can do all the preparations you want. Put her in a cold cell naked. Torture her all you want. She's not going to fucking die. So it's really a wasted attempt at suspense.
Because at the last second, with her head on the chopping block, her long-lost father, Lord James comes to the rescue. Yeah, I saw that coming a mile away, man. No surprise whatsoever. Lord James takes her to his large house in the country, and pampers the shit out of his long-lost daughter.
But Helen is having none of it. "Fuck you, dad! I can take care of myself, thank you very much." But Lord James has his man-servant drug her, so she stays in bed, like a good little girl. But eventually, she heals up enough to go on being the good doctor, attending to the sick and ailing royalty.
I really didn't like this book. Not because it was poorly written, though. It was very well written. With amazingly vibrant characters. Especially Helen. I fucking loved Helen. She had some spunk. Even though she was a virgin. Why do they always have to be virgins? Being a slut is way more interesting.
No, the reason I didn't like this book was the fact that nothing actually happened in it. It was just gossip and rumors and politics and bullshit. Nobody died. Nobody got fucked. It was all just innuendo. There wasn't even any real back-stabbing. I'd expect some crazy back-stabbing from a fucking soap opera, but with this story there was none. And that lack of conflict made the story boring as fuck.
This story is mostly about royalty and politics. Some military doctor chick is tasked with saving a prince who had a heart attack. Everyone just assumed he was dead. And he was for a few minutes, but the doctor chick brought him back. Now he's a zombie prince. Yay!
But wait, this doctor chick isn't even royalty. What the fuck is she even doing on the grounds? That's sacrilege! Arrest her at once! And so they do, and like a third of this fucking book is dedicated to her trial for stepping on sacred ground. A capital offense. Really? You're gonna put some hot chick to death because she stepped foot in your secret garden? That's fucking retarded.
Of course she's convicted, and sentenced to death. But come on, she's the main character in this story, and frankly, the only interesting one. She's not going to fucking die. You can do all the preparations you want. Put her in a cold cell naked. Torture her all you want. She's not going to fucking die. So it's really a wasted attempt at suspense.
Because at the last second, with her head on the chopping block, her long-lost father, Lord James comes to the rescue. Yeah, I saw that coming a mile away, man. No surprise whatsoever. Lord James takes her to his large house in the country, and pampers the shit out of his long-lost daughter.
But Helen is having none of it. "Fuck you, dad! I can take care of myself, thank you very much." But Lord James has his man-servant drug her, so she stays in bed, like a good little girl. But eventually, she heals up enough to go on being the good doctor, attending to the sick and ailing royalty.
I really didn't like this book. Not because it was poorly written, though. It was very well written. With amazingly vibrant characters. Especially Helen. I fucking loved Helen. She had some spunk. Even though she was a virgin. Why do they always have to be virgins? Being a slut is way more interesting.
No, the reason I didn't like this book was the fact that nothing actually happened in it. It was just gossip and rumors and politics and bullshit. Nobody died. Nobody got fucked. It was all just innuendo. There wasn't even any real back-stabbing. I'd expect some crazy back-stabbing from a fucking soap opera, but with this story there was none. And that lack of conflict made the story boring as fuck.
October 1, 2014
We are proud to announce that THE VISION: GREEN STONE OF HEALING by C.L. Talmadge is a B.R.A.G.Medallion Honoree. This tells a reader that this book is well worth their time and money!
December 31, 2008
The Vision is the first book of the Green Stone of Healing Series. A slim volume at 224 pages (including a glossary), The Vision sets up a volatile political climate that will undoubtedly become the centerpiece of the next two books, with lords and other nobles vying for power, and subsequently doing whatever it takes to acquire it. It also establishes the world of Azgard, a semi-futuristic, mostly fantasy place where people called the Toltecs have conquered the another people--the Turanians--and then banned all interbreeding, especially amongst the nobles.
Without giving too much away, The Vision follows Lt. Helen Andros, a half-breed who has had to work harder than anyone else just to get one grain of respect as a healer. Her hard work made her one of the best healers in all of Azgard, but it also guided her into being an abrasive, stubborn individual. What Helen doesn't know about her past, however, becomes a subject of brutal laws, violence, and political poison. Helen is an illegitimate orphan in a nation divided by race and rank, but when the truth of her origins begins to surface, the entire Toltec world will be shaken and the era of near-purity amongst the Toltec nobles will come to an end. Needless to say, some Toltecs aren't willing to lose their way of life and will try anything to hang on to their power and their belief in the purity of the Toltec race.
Talmadge's novel does a decent job of establishing the world of Azgard and the characters that will play an important role throughout the series. One of the issues I had, however, was that, while a lot of worldbuilding is a good thing, the worldbuilding in this novel seemed a bit much for the space provided. Some of the elements of Azgard seemed under dressed or overwhelmed by too much dressing. It became somewhat difficult to remember who was who, who was related to who, etc. This will likely be less of an issue in the following novels of the series, since most of the characters that will appear there will have already been established, but I feel like The Vision could have benefited from additionally pages devoted to showing us the world and all its intricacies.
Setting the worldbuilding aside, The Vision is a highly political book that delves into the inner workings of thoroughly entrenched politics--in this case the Toltec nobles. It is populated with a variety of interesting characters. Helen, who eventually becomes mixed up in all of it, even though, technically, she was already rather mixed up in it, takes center stage, with a huge cast of lords surrounding her, who generally are easy to pick out from the crowd, but can get a bit muddled when you toss them into a room full of other lords. Helen, though, is the resident "difficult one." She has good reason to be and her rather harsh dealings with other characters often come off in a humorous way. Other characters, such as Lord Justin, would do well with more characterization in later installments--this is something I'm hoping for.
For the most part I enjoyed The Vision, but it had several flaws, some of which have already been mentioned. One additional issue is one of style. Talmadge moves between POVs fluidly, but without breaks. She jumps back and forth between characters, sometimes to convey information to the reader that can't be conveyed with Helen or whoever is supposed to be the main viewpoint in that particular part of the book. This is a problem for me because I don't particularly like this style; often times it seems amateur and I see it as distracting from the characters that are most important to the story. Hopefully it lightens up in the other books.
Overall, The Vision is a complex piece of speculative fiction. While it has many flaws, it at least succeeds in being somewhat intriguing. Helen's wit and tough attitude are attributes to pay attention to and there are certainly plenty of interesting things to be said or observed about the politics of the Toltecs. Something I am still very much curious about is how much of the plot is actually set up by one of the other characters, whose name I will not mention here to preserve the mystery of the story. Is it all an elaborate ploy, or did it just work out the way it did with the noble houses becoming split by one person, even though that person never asked for it?
Without giving too much away, The Vision follows Lt. Helen Andros, a half-breed who has had to work harder than anyone else just to get one grain of respect as a healer. Her hard work made her one of the best healers in all of Azgard, but it also guided her into being an abrasive, stubborn individual. What Helen doesn't know about her past, however, becomes a subject of brutal laws, violence, and political poison. Helen is an illegitimate orphan in a nation divided by race and rank, but when the truth of her origins begins to surface, the entire Toltec world will be shaken and the era of near-purity amongst the Toltec nobles will come to an end. Needless to say, some Toltecs aren't willing to lose their way of life and will try anything to hang on to their power and their belief in the purity of the Toltec race.
Talmadge's novel does a decent job of establishing the world of Azgard and the characters that will play an important role throughout the series. One of the issues I had, however, was that, while a lot of worldbuilding is a good thing, the worldbuilding in this novel seemed a bit much for the space provided. Some of the elements of Azgard seemed under dressed or overwhelmed by too much dressing. It became somewhat difficult to remember who was who, who was related to who, etc. This will likely be less of an issue in the following novels of the series, since most of the characters that will appear there will have already been established, but I feel like The Vision could have benefited from additionally pages devoted to showing us the world and all its intricacies.
Setting the worldbuilding aside, The Vision is a highly political book that delves into the inner workings of thoroughly entrenched politics--in this case the Toltec nobles. It is populated with a variety of interesting characters. Helen, who eventually becomes mixed up in all of it, even though, technically, she was already rather mixed up in it, takes center stage, with a huge cast of lords surrounding her, who generally are easy to pick out from the crowd, but can get a bit muddled when you toss them into a room full of other lords. Helen, though, is the resident "difficult one." She has good reason to be and her rather harsh dealings with other characters often come off in a humorous way. Other characters, such as Lord Justin, would do well with more characterization in later installments--this is something I'm hoping for.
For the most part I enjoyed The Vision, but it had several flaws, some of which have already been mentioned. One additional issue is one of style. Talmadge moves between POVs fluidly, but without breaks. She jumps back and forth between characters, sometimes to convey information to the reader that can't be conveyed with Helen or whoever is supposed to be the main viewpoint in that particular part of the book. This is a problem for me because I don't particularly like this style; often times it seems amateur and I see it as distracting from the characters that are most important to the story. Hopefully it lightens up in the other books.
Overall, The Vision is a complex piece of speculative fiction. While it has many flaws, it at least succeeds in being somewhat intriguing. Helen's wit and tough attitude are attributes to pay attention to and there are certainly plenty of interesting things to be said or observed about the politics of the Toltecs. Something I am still very much curious about is how much of the plot is actually set up by one of the other characters, whose name I will not mention here to preserve the mystery of the story. Is it all an elaborate ploy, or did it just work out the way it did with the noble houses becoming split by one person, even though that person never asked for it?
May 16, 2015
I enjoyed sinking my reading teeth into this one.
The Vision is the first book in the Green Stone of Healing series. A series that promises to be both complicated and fantasy-driven, the story starts out with a foreword with one of the characters we encounter again later in the book as she reflects on her life’s events and tells the story. It is the story we are about to read.
The main protagonist of the story is Lieutenant Helen Andros, a medical officer – we don’t find out of what until later – meets with someone named Sudras who we assume is some kind of mentor. Things start out just a little slow with this conversation and the next scenes that follow (too many characters at once to deal with!), but before long, Helen, both extraordinarily beautiful and a highly competent doctor, is drawn into her first political intrigue when she is called to save a mortally sick Prince.
She has to enter a city where she is forbidden to enter without permission and is instructed not to go outside. After bringing Prince Harnak back from the brink of death, Helen makes her mistake. She goes outside to gather herbs to further the Prince’s well-being. She is captured and sentenced to death for being somewhere where she is not supposed to be.
The tale becomes complicated when Helen gains vital information about her past and about who she really is. But this information has no chance to save her. Helen, we are told in the foreword, is the main protagonist. But will she die? Talmadge does a credible job of keeping the pacing and suspense high as the story heads to its middle.
Talmadge also weaves together highly complicated plots and subplots, but it is sometimes nearly impossible to follow them or to remember all of the Lords and Ladies without referring to the Glossary in the back of the book (something I loathe doing when I’m reading). But there are enough surprises and interesting intrigues that keep the story rolling along until the abrupt end, when we are left with a tantalizing bit of information about even higher stakes that will surely be played out in the next volume(s) of the series.
The writing in The Vision is good, giving description to characters, their mode of dress, the roles they play. But even though the fantasy world of Turanians and Toltecs is richly drawn with people and castles, I didn’t always have a good feel for the land, the weather or any of the other mundane things that go into describing cities and villages. It could also be that I read too fast to be able to appreciate all of the descriptions.
The within-scene head-hopping did distract me from time-to-time as well as my inability to keep track of the characters as noted above (mainly because nearly everyone is either a Lord this or Lady that – and there are very many of them).
The fantasy aspects of the story are destined to come to the fore in later books, not a flaw for me, but some might find it annoying not to know up front what the stakes are or what powers some of the characters possess. It is a slow burn series in that respect, and I don’t have any trouble with that. But readers who want to know what is going on and to be able to understand what the stakes are right from the start will be frustrated with this introductory novel.
I have gained enough interest in the characters and the politics, the potential love stories and their complications to want to move onto the next book in the series [[book:Fallout: Green Stone of Healing® Series - Book Two|23821541]. And that’s the most important thing.
The Vision is the first book in the Green Stone of Healing series. A series that promises to be both complicated and fantasy-driven, the story starts out with a foreword with one of the characters we encounter again later in the book as she reflects on her life’s events and tells the story. It is the story we are about to read.
The main protagonist of the story is Lieutenant Helen Andros, a medical officer – we don’t find out of what until later – meets with someone named Sudras who we assume is some kind of mentor. Things start out just a little slow with this conversation and the next scenes that follow (too many characters at once to deal with!), but before long, Helen, both extraordinarily beautiful and a highly competent doctor, is drawn into her first political intrigue when she is called to save a mortally sick Prince.
She has to enter a city where she is forbidden to enter without permission and is instructed not to go outside. After bringing Prince Harnak back from the brink of death, Helen makes her mistake. She goes outside to gather herbs to further the Prince’s well-being. She is captured and sentenced to death for being somewhere where she is not supposed to be.
The tale becomes complicated when Helen gains vital information about her past and about who she really is. But this information has no chance to save her. Helen, we are told in the foreword, is the main protagonist. But will she die? Talmadge does a credible job of keeping the pacing and suspense high as the story heads to its middle.
Talmadge also weaves together highly complicated plots and subplots, but it is sometimes nearly impossible to follow them or to remember all of the Lords and Ladies without referring to the Glossary in the back of the book (something I loathe doing when I’m reading). But there are enough surprises and interesting intrigues that keep the story rolling along until the abrupt end, when we are left with a tantalizing bit of information about even higher stakes that will surely be played out in the next volume(s) of the series.
The writing in The Vision is good, giving description to characters, their mode of dress, the roles they play. But even though the fantasy world of Turanians and Toltecs is richly drawn with people and castles, I didn’t always have a good feel for the land, the weather or any of the other mundane things that go into describing cities and villages. It could also be that I read too fast to be able to appreciate all of the descriptions.
The within-scene head-hopping did distract me from time-to-time as well as my inability to keep track of the characters as noted above (mainly because nearly everyone is either a Lord this or Lady that – and there are very many of them).
The fantasy aspects of the story are destined to come to the fore in later books, not a flaw for me, but some might find it annoying not to know up front what the stakes are or what powers some of the characters possess. It is a slow burn series in that respect, and I don’t have any trouble with that. But readers who want to know what is going on and to be able to understand what the stakes are right from the start will be frustrated with this introductory novel.
I have gained enough interest in the characters and the politics, the potential love stories and their complications to want to move onto the next book in the series [[book:Fallout: Green Stone of Healing® Series - Book Two|23821541]. And that’s the most important thing.
April 21, 2010
It’s not a bad novel to read if you’re looking for something different. Especially if you’re into more strategic soap operish warfare than straight up violence. I know something is going on in the background, but I’m still not entirely sure what that is. At the same time, all of the characters involved, all have this interconnecting love triangle/story going on that would be horrible if anyone found out. If you’re curious to know what my thoughts are on the series, I’ll have to say that I’m curious to see what happens next, but I’m not driven to pick up Fallout, the second novel, as soon as I’m finished writing this.
For my full review, click here.
For my full review, click here.
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January 23, 2015I'll leave it to others to rate this book since it is my fiction. But my decades long quest to write fiction has been the most powerful influence in my life. It led me to deep-seated healing that I believe is the reason I am still alive today. Otherwise my fears would have killed me. It is based on at least two of my past lives, and past lives of my spouse and friends.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews