Review by Tabbi+20 -- Strong Heart by Charlie Sheldon
Posted: 02 Nov 2020, 17:05
[Following is a volunteer review of "Strong Heart" by Charlie Sheldon.]
When I read the first chapters of this book, I concluded for myself that Tom was the one who had a strong heart. Losing his mother while he was in Vietnam as a Navy in 1965. He also lost his wife Ruth and his daughter Becky to a commissioner, Fletcher Lynch. Becky runs away because Fletcher was pursuing her at the age of 15 . She gets married and births Sarah, but her husband dies in a car accident. She gets married again but later dies of sickness. Fletcher tries his charm on Sarah , ends up with a half bandaged face.Tom goes camping with his grandfather Henry David Olsen, who dies of a heart attack aged 74 and Tom burries him alone on Bear Creek. He seems a lonely man.
My judgement was wrong. Sarah , Tom's granddaughter and an orphan too, proves beyond reasonable doubt worthy of the title strong heart.First, she is an artist and draws perfectly what she sees. On reaching Tom's house and being introduced by her grandmother Ruth. Tom, William and Myra kidnap her to go camping with them. She constantly insisted they kidnapped her. While there, she excuses herself to be away from the newly found family members. She comes back to them shock smitten on her face claiming to have come face to face with a bear. A bear believed to be extinct over 12000 years. They all look at her drawing with disbelief . This obviously angers Sarah and she decides to hide from them just to make them panick searching for her.She disappears for eight days.They call for help and search for her using a helicopter but to no avail. Her grandfather Tom, refuses to give up searching for her. Luckily he and William find her. She had a bad head cut, half her fourth finger missing, tattered clothes, muddy, thin and very weak. Tom and William cleaned her up.
The author of this book, Strong Heart, Charlie Sheldon, carefully puts the story in motion . Each character playing their role making the reader walk step by step with him . Where the story was emotional I got emotional too. Where there was a joke made by any of them , I laughed, where the story got scary, I found myself equally scared ad the characters in various chapters. Need I say, during the bear attacks I had to check all my door locks. I also felt I should have a gun because the bear was so real it could jump out of the book and attack me as well.
Despite Sarah getting trapped for eight days and going through a tough time for a child her age, she purposes to go camping again. This time, to retrieve something she hid . An atlatl for dating. A fossilized bone that they believed could stop a mining on Tom's family's land claim . Unfortunately after retrieving it, its destroyed by Buckhorn's men and thrown into the fire. Tom is left with nothing except Sarah's drawing of the atlatl on her sketchpad. Buckhorn is the man who
by partnrri g with Fletcher, Tom's ex wife's husband , want to start mining on Tom's family land illegally.
I enjoyed reading this book despite the frightening scenarios which painted the pictures perfectly when I closed my eyes. I must commend the author for that. It takes more than a pen and a paper to write something that the reader visualises.
Throughout my reading , I did not encounter any grammatical or typo errors. I was able to follow and connect with all characters, the bears not withstanding. I found the book professionally edited. With a strong heart, I rate Strong Heart 4 out of 4 stars.
However, the book has a lot of killing especially during Sarah's adventure which is horrifying. I would not recommend it to sensitive readers. But if you are strong heart, join me. It's an enjoyable read and I hope you get to enjoy it as well.
******
Strong Heart
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
When I read the first chapters of this book, I concluded for myself that Tom was the one who had a strong heart. Losing his mother while he was in Vietnam as a Navy in 1965. He also lost his wife Ruth and his daughter Becky to a commissioner, Fletcher Lynch. Becky runs away because Fletcher was pursuing her at the age of 15 . She gets married and births Sarah, but her husband dies in a car accident. She gets married again but later dies of sickness. Fletcher tries his charm on Sarah , ends up with a half bandaged face.Tom goes camping with his grandfather Henry David Olsen, who dies of a heart attack aged 74 and Tom burries him alone on Bear Creek. He seems a lonely man.
My judgement was wrong. Sarah , Tom's granddaughter and an orphan too, proves beyond reasonable doubt worthy of the title strong heart.First, she is an artist and draws perfectly what she sees. On reaching Tom's house and being introduced by her grandmother Ruth. Tom, William and Myra kidnap her to go camping with them. She constantly insisted they kidnapped her. While there, she excuses herself to be away from the newly found family members. She comes back to them shock smitten on her face claiming to have come face to face with a bear. A bear believed to be extinct over 12000 years. They all look at her drawing with disbelief . This obviously angers Sarah and she decides to hide from them just to make them panick searching for her.She disappears for eight days.They call for help and search for her using a helicopter but to no avail. Her grandfather Tom, refuses to give up searching for her. Luckily he and William find her. She had a bad head cut, half her fourth finger missing, tattered clothes, muddy, thin and very weak. Tom and William cleaned her up.
The author of this book, Strong Heart, Charlie Sheldon, carefully puts the story in motion . Each character playing their role making the reader walk step by step with him . Where the story was emotional I got emotional too. Where there was a joke made by any of them , I laughed, where the story got scary, I found myself equally scared ad the characters in various chapters. Need I say, during the bear attacks I had to check all my door locks. I also felt I should have a gun because the bear was so real it could jump out of the book and attack me as well.
Despite Sarah getting trapped for eight days and going through a tough time for a child her age, she purposes to go camping again. This time, to retrieve something she hid . An atlatl for dating. A fossilized bone that they believed could stop a mining on Tom's family's land claim . Unfortunately after retrieving it, its destroyed by Buckhorn's men and thrown into the fire. Tom is left with nothing except Sarah's drawing of the atlatl on her sketchpad. Buckhorn is the man who
by partnrri g with Fletcher, Tom's ex wife's husband , want to start mining on Tom's family land illegally.
I enjoyed reading this book despite the frightening scenarios which painted the pictures perfectly when I closed my eyes. I must commend the author for that. It takes more than a pen and a paper to write something that the reader visualises.
Throughout my reading , I did not encounter any grammatical or typo errors. I was able to follow and connect with all characters, the bears not withstanding. I found the book professionally edited. With a strong heart, I rate Strong Heart 4 out of 4 stars.
However, the book has a lot of killing especially during Sarah's adventure which is horrifying. I would not recommend it to sensitive readers. But if you are strong heart, join me. It's an enjoyable read and I hope you get to enjoy it as well.
******
Strong Heart
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon