Wow ... what a story!
It's not a novel at just 38 pages, but it sure feels like one. Night Swiftly Falling is the first book I read from Tricia D. Wagner, but judging by what I've just read it sure won't be the last one.
I will not retell or summarize the novelette's plot in this review, I just want to treasure anyone who is thinking of reading it to just go for it.
At first, I was caught off-guard - I was reading about pirates and treasure. A few pages in I understand, that it's all a game, a play-pretend, which I can resonate with - who hasn't pretended to be a pirate when they were little. So I'm thinking ""Ok, that sounds promising. A light read to pass the time."" But boy, oh, boy was I wrong.
I don't mean to demean the story, but it is not as important as the psychological and behavioral points of view. Don't let me scare you, it's not a dry piece from a psychological journal, not at all. The depth of the characters can surprise you, the seemingly ordinary situations Swift and Ash find themselves into are explained by the author in such detail, it's just staggering!
And, spoiler alert, the fox. The gentle beast's passing was one of those chapters that I will never forget. The detail of the scene, the emotion pouring out the pages, is simply sublime.
The joy and sadness that you're left at the end of this (relatively) short work of art are why I love reading books by indie authors. You, my friends, are the unsung heroes of this form of art.
In conclusion, I can highly recommend Night Swiftly Falling and I myself will be sure to go through Tricia D. Wagner's whole bookshelf in the next few days!
