Book Review for Desert Son by Glenn Maynard

Desert Son
by Glenn Maynard

  3.5 stars

Reviewed by:Tonya
Format:Kindle

Published: Black Rose Writing
Source:ARC  Gene: Fiction

Blurb

Carter Spence is a 26 year-old accountant out of Boston who has an out-of-body experience following a car accident that kills his parents. He views the chaos from above the scene of the accident, then passes through the tunnel and reunites with relatives who have long been dead. A woman he does not recognize approaches him and says, “Welcome, son.” Her message to him is that he needs to be aware of his true identity and should follow signs that will lead him there. She mentions mountains, but Carter is jolted back into his physical body before she can finish.

After burying his parents, Carter heads west and meets a free-spirit named Brenda, whom he is drawn to on many levels. She becomes his travelling companion and leads him to Boulder, Colorado, and to an old white house of an old man named Martin. Diaries, hypnosis, and past-life regression reveal a bizarre connection between these three. Carter discovers that the truth to his identity can only be found by pursuing the answer to whether he is the reincarnation of his biological father in what is shaping up to be a love affair rekindled beyond the grave.

Our Review

This is a first person story about a young man Carter who is in a horrible car accident and watches everything going on as his entire life flashes before him. The so called “out of body” experience. He describes everything he is seeing and is able to flash back and forth from place to place.

Just when he thinks the end is near he is sent back with a message to head west and find himself. I have always had a very hard time with first person stories as I really like interaction and perspectives from multiple sides. So the beginning was very slow for me to get into as it really is all Carter describing everything going on, everything he see’s and does. There is minimal interaction with people in the hospital and at the funeral afterwards so I really did have to push through these parts.

Carter has several “adventures” I guess you could call them, or moments that one may not normally have in the course of their life so that did add to the book as it kept me wondering if it would eventually catch up to him. At times I wondered just how in the world did he get away with that. Was there some “force” that was driving him, keeping him on a path and from detection?

Carter winds up in Boulder, Colorado after giving Brenda a ride. A girl he met when he stopped on his travels. Something about Boulder pulled to him. Made him want to stay and figure out just what it was about the place. This is when the story picked up, there was finally some interaction, dialogue and story build up. And I finally got to where I wanted to see just what happens, what it is about this place that not only caused Carter pain but pulled him to stay as well.

Carter and Brenda seem to be on a collision with the past and the more they dig the more it is unraveled. I will say the ending is not what I expected. It was actually a much better ending than the start of the book. Slow start great finish.