Gift of the Seer
By K.B. Laugheed
Genre: Historical Fiction/U.S. Historical Fiction
Rating: 2 Stars
“Katie O’Toole’s epic adventure began in The Spirit Keeper (Plume 2013) when she was rescued from a 1747 frontier massacre in Pennsylvania only to find herself chosen as the “Spirit Keeper” of a dying Indian Seer. She hesitated to accept this mysterious obligation until she fell in love with the Seer’s bodyguard, an Indian man she called Hector.
In The Gift of the Seer, Katie and Hector continue their journey across the continent, but the more Katie learns about the peculiar ways of her husband’s people, the more she dreads arriving at their destination. Will anyone believe she is the Spirit Keeper she pretends to be? Equally troubling, Katie knows the Seer expected her to prove his Vision—a Vision which foretold of infinite Invaders coming to his world—but to prove this prophecy, she must give his people the great Gift he also predicted. The only problem is that Katie has no Gift to give.
Years pass as she desperately searches for a way to fulfill her promise to the dead Seer, but when his former rival threatens to expose her as a fraud, Katie finally understands that her life and the lives of all the people in her new world hang in the balance. That’s when she knows she must give a Gift—she must—before it is too late.”
REVIEW
I was provided this book by the author in exchange for an honest review.
This was an interesting read in many ways because I enjoyed the history and detail; but in all frankness I found the language issues disconcerting and distracting from the story itself.
What language issues am I referring to? Well, in all fairness it’s something that the author does warn the reader about at the beginning of the book. K.B. Laugheed uses a style of writing where he main character Katie O’Toole speaks in stunted English as though she is a Native American Indian trying to speak English rather than a former pioneer settler of Pennsylvania who spoke English fluently.
Apparently Katie doesn’t remember how to spell words, or even what tense to use much of the time. I understand she is supposed to have lived with the Indians for 30 years at this point and I can believe that recalling such things could be a difficulty for her, but this style of writing drove me bonkers and made reading this book work for me rather than a pleasure; it really interrupted the flow of the story.
Speaking of the story…that reminds me, this story is not meant to be read as a stand-alone. It is the second book in this series. That’s fine, I like a good series. But this one throws the reader right into the story with very little background; it really begins very abruptly. Perhaps had I read the first book in the series or even if this book would have had Prologue for a new reader I would have been more acclimated to this story, but it didn’t have those things. So, I was often a bit lost.
There are many things I found that I liked about Katie too. Their journey was interesting, her love for her husband was evident and I really enjoyed the historical aspects as well. So, there are many things within this story that I did enjoy, although the pacing of the plot often felt off to me.
But would I recommend it?
Wow that’s kind of a tough one for me without having read the first book to know if it would make an impact on reading this one. I wanted to write a glowing review for The Gift of the Seer, but I just couldn’t quite do that. I just…didn’t love this one.
But, even though I am going to rate this one at a 2 star for me, I’m going to go ahead and recommend it because what distracts me may not distract you. However, I will say that you should read the first book (The Spirit Keeper) in the series first. If you do read this book and have a different opinion please let me know, I’d love to discuss it.
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