Also by this author: Golden Daughter, Shadow Hand, Dragonwitch, Starflower, Moonblood, Veiled Rose, Heartless, Draven's Light
Series: Tales of Goldstone Wood
Published by Rooglewood Press on November 2016
Genres: Fiction, Christian, Fantasy
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A short adventure set in the world of Goldstone Wood, featuring a fan-favorite character!
She is a Knight of Farthestshore, a woman of courage . . . and secrets. She has faced many perils in her time, but nothing has prepared her for the evil she is about to encounter in the treacherous Wood Between.
I first discovered Goldstone Wood in 2013 with Dragonwitch. I immediately went back to books 1-4 (Heartless, Veiled Rose, Moonblood, and Starflower) and followed the series in lock-step until Anne Elisabeth Stengl put aside that world (and took on the name Sylvia Mercedes) in 2017. What I did not realize was that there were also two novellas and a short story that Stengl released as well—shorter, less complex stories set in Goldstone that provided readers some story fodder between full length novels.
Fallen Star is a short story (about forty pages) that was borne out of a contest that Stengl ran where the winner could pick a character for Stengl to write a story about. That winner chose Beana, a character central to Veiled Rose, and the result is this quick glimpse into Goldstone. This is strictly a fan-service story. It’s not a good place to enter Stengl’s writing and the story assumes you have full knowledge from Veiled Rose who all the characters are. It’s almost more of an outtake from the main novel or fan fiction.
The story’s only intention is to show the first meeting between two central and fan-favorite characters. As a standalone story, it isn’t much. But, it wasn’t intended to be. It’s one of those things an author does for fun and usually offers for free. At a current price of $0.99 on Kindle, it’s probably not worth that unless you’re already a fan of the series. Your dollar is more of a generous donation to a beloved author and series.
Fallen Star was enjoyable, but it’s not really a story. It’s more of a collection of scenes that resulted from Stengl’s excellent ability to interact with her fans. It’s a unique method of storytelling and, while I’m not sure that Kindle was the best place to do it, I have to give Stengl credit for engaging her audience in new and unique ways.