Scared: A Novel on the Edge of the World - Softcover

Davis, Tom

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1589191021 ISBN 13: 9781589191020

Publisher: David C Cook, 2009

Synopsis

Stuart Daniels has hit bottom. Once a celebrated and award-winning photojournalist, he is reeling from debt, a broken marriage, and crippling depression. The source of Stuart's grief is his most famous photo, a snapshot of brutality in the dangerous Congo. A haunting image that indicts him as a passive witness to gross injustice.

Stuart is given a one last chance to redeem his career: A make-or-break assignment covering the AIDS crisis in a small African country. It is here that Stuart meets Adanna, a young orphan fighting for survival in a community ravaged by tragedy and disease. But in the face of overwhelming odds, Adanna finds hope in a special dream, where she is visited by an illuminated man and given a precious gift.

Now, in a dark place that's a world away from home, Stuart will once again confront the harsh reality of a suffering people in a forgotten land. And as a chance encounter becomes divine providence, two very different people will find their lives forever changed.

About this title

About the Author:

Tom Davis is an author, consultant, and the president of Children's HopeChest ( www.hopechest.org) a Christian-based child advocacy organization helping orphans in Eastern Europe and Africa. His first book, Fields of the Fatherless has sold over 60,000 copies. Tom holds a Business and Pastoral Ministry degree from Dallas Baptist University and a Master's Degree in Theology from The Criswell College.

Review:

Nonfiction author Davis (Fields of the Fatherless) makes his fiction debut with a story about two people worlds apart who help each other find redemption. An orphan girl in Swaziland endures her uncle's abuse through visions of "the illuminated man" who she believes will take her to her dead mother's side. When photographer Stuart Daniels discovers the girl near death, he enlists a pastor and a village chief to help her and her two siblings. Facing floods, confronting and aid agency's fraud, and absorbing a brutal attack by one of many desperate starving people may be the only path toward atonement for Stuart's past life. Davis shows insight into African cultures and his writing is vivid, but the novel is weakened by shifts in tense and point of view and lack of patience for character transformation. The novel is the first of three; the series could become popular if the quality of the writing can improve enough to do justice to the passion with which the author champions his cause. --Publishers Weekly

"Although he's written a number of books, Scared is Tom's first novel. Reading it was effortless. What a thrill to see the backdrop of Swaziland, that AIDS-devastated country that I've come to care about so deeply. Similarly, to see many of our experiences in the book gave me that peculiar feeling of art imitating life. There was Pastor Walter, one of the first Swazis I worked with in 2004. There was the familiar Swazi landscape. There was the experience with the large ministry that was, as they say in Texas, "all hat and no cattle." The problem in connecting American readers to Swazi issues has always been the great cultural divide between us. We are individualistic and self-aware. We live complicated lives. Swazis are fortunate to live past 30 - they struggle with basic life issues. Tom bridges this gap by intertwining the lives of an American photographer and a young Swazi orphan girl. Both are confronted with huge life issues and both have something that the other one needs. There is a little bit of all of us in them. All of us confront our mortality with a measure of the fear that the book's title implies. And all of us need someone to pull us into a reality that is larger than ourselves. How is it different from Red Letters or Fields of the Fatherless, Tom's other books about orphans? By placing real issues in the context of a story, it makes them more accessible. One of my friends who read the book even said: "I couldn't put it down. I feel he has a best seller here. It read allot like the book Same Kinda Different as Me which sold millions. Please tell him thanks for putting added fire in my soul to be a part of what God is doing in Swaziland." - Tami Kesling

Well done, Tom. Thanks for daring to put down in novel form the issues that break God's heart" ----Seth Barnes, CEO of AIM (Adventures in Missions) and author of The Art of Listening Prayer

About this edition

• Publisher: David C Cook
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 1589191021
• ISBN 13: 9781589191020
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 304