The Restorer’s Journey
Sharon Hinck
NAV Press, Mar 2008, $14.99
ISBN: 9781600061332

Before Susan, Mark and their eighteen years old son Jake use the portal to return from the dimension of Lyric to their home on earth (see THE RESTORER’S SON), Councilman Cameron and the Rhus Media (who can twist and poison the minds of her victims) they escape through the portal into our earth too. They disappear for several weeks before they return with packages and force Susan to get through the dimension corridor with them.

Mark is unable to use the portal, but Jake travels to the other world to rescue his mother. Jake has changed since the last time he was on the other side. Cameron claims to have records that say when Restorer appeared twice in a generation, the line ends. This is a lie because Jake is the new Restorer, a person sent to the One to fight for the people and help the guardians. While Jake seeks his mother and a plan to defeat Cameron and throw the Kahlarea out of Render, Susan is trapped in the land of Rhus where Medea’s protégé tries his best to beak her by crawling through her mind.

Anyone who has felt the darkness close in on them while also feeling rage and despair should read THE RESTORER’S JOURNEY. Susan and Jake feel all that and more, but they draw on the strength from the One and in their hearts and refuse to allow evil to win. Sharon Hinck writes fantasy that takes the audience to a special magical place where faith is the cornerstone of life. Those who fail to adhere to that philosophy end up destroying themselves from inside their souls to their physical presence.

Harriet Klausner

The Restorer
Sharon Hinck
Navpress, May 2007, 425 pp.
ISBN 1600061311

Susan Mitchell is feeling overwhelmed by the demands of her children and those she makes on herself. Her husband Mark built a getaway for Susan in their attic, but the first time she enters she hears voices before being pulled through a portal into another world. She sees a knight kill a person and realizes she isn’t in Kansas anymore. Although the knight is mistrustful of her, he takes her under his wing and brings her to his clan in Braide Wood.

She learns she is in the realm of the Children of the Verses, a group of twelve tribes which believe in the one. They are under attack from many fronts, as Hezon wants to expand and assimilate the Children of the Verses into their own empire and they give the people an ultimatum that they can’t possible meet. They can get weapons but they can’t use them have because on the records and in the songs the voice the One says his people can only do battle with swords and the Verses. Cameron the head councilman of the tribes wants to use the sync beam even though it is forbidden and he has allowed the Rhusicans to enter the tribal lands. They invade people’s minds and poison them in some way so they turn from the One. Susan discovers she is the new Restorer sent by the One with enhanced powers to save his people. She hopes when the time comes she will have the courage to do so.

The world that Susan enters is full of high tech superior to earth’s but it’s people have the same feelings, needs and hopes as they do in our own world. The people are waiting for their Deliverer while in our own world the Savior is believed by many to have come. There are plenty of surprises in this inspiring novel. The heroine is courageous and vulnerable at the same time in this new world where she has a connection with the One. Fantasy fans will thoroughly enjoy this exciting and character driven high fantasy tale.

Harriet Klausner