Genre: Urban
Fantasy/Contemporary/World Mythology
Description:
“Sue faces the biggest challenge of her career: she has three weeks to
raise millions of dollars for research into a supergrain that promises to end
world hunger. But ayalendo has some distressing -- even dangerous -- qualities.
And Lucifer means to exploit them to control the world’s food supply and become
a god at last.
When Tess learns the identity of the shady corporation pushing
ayalendo’s development, she realizes her own livelihood may be in jeopardy. She
and Darrell embark on a cross-country journey to her parents’ farm to gather
information for a congressional committee investigating the ayalendo project.
The gods are bringing in some big guns to help. But it will be up to
Sue, Tess, and Darrell to defeat Lucifer, once and for all.”
Author:
“Lynne Cantwell is a contributing author at Indies Unlimited where she shares her knowledge about Indie
publishing and promotion. She has a master’s degree in fiction writing from
Johns Hopkins University and is a former broadcast journalist who has written
for CNN and Mutual/NBC Radio News, among other places. Ms. Cantwell currently
lives near Washington, DC.”
You can connect with her at her website or on her Facebook page.
Appraisal:
Ms. Cantwell really surprised me with this series. She managed to get
me interested in the political workings of our legislature using intrigue and
underhanded politics. Setting up scenarios and relating how they realistically
affect people’s lives and livelihoods when politicians get greedy. This plot
revolves around Lucifer’s end game. He has been trying to gain enough followers
to ascend to godhood and so far the gods have succeeded in keeping him out. In Crosswind he used race and religion to
gain followers. In Undertow he used
Americans’ fear of terrorists, and so far Tess, Darrell, and Sue, with their
gods backing and insight, have been able to thwart Lucifer’s plans. In Scorched Earth, he seeks to control a
new supergrain that could end world hunger with devastating consequences.
The plot moves swiftly as our trio of heroes uncover Lucifer’s plot.
Tess and Sue both have personal stakes in the outcome, as well as the rest of
humanity. Ms. Cantwell has done an excellent job weaving her story, which has a
global impact, to relate it on a personal level. I thoroughly enjoyed the way
the story was brought full circle, bringing it together with The Pipe Woman Chronicles. I had hopes
as the story was unfolding that this would come to pass and Ms. Cantwell did
not disappoint me. I do hate to see this series end and I am hoping these
characters are still talking to the author so we will get more from them in the
future. Well done, Ms. Cantwell. This has been a wonderful, unique series.
FYI:
This is the third and final book in the Land, Sea, Sky series. Ms. Cantwell has included a synopsis for Crosswind and Undertow at the beginning of this book. However, I think it would be beneficial to
read both prior to reading Scorched Earth
to fully understand all the characters.
Added for
Reprise Review: Scorched
Earth by Lynne Cantwell was a nominee in the Fantasy category for B&P
2015 Readers' Choice Awards. Original review ran June 16, 2014
Format/Typo
Issues:
I noticed no significant errors in editing or formatting.
Rating:
***** Five Stars
Reviewed
by: ?wazithinkin
Approximate
word count: 60-65,000 words
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