Then\u2026I was asked to read INSIGHT, the first installment in the series THE BEHOLDERS by Terron James<\/a>. I\u2019d met Terron a few times, and we\u2019ve become pretty good friends online. His wife is a gem. Love her. Wish they\u2019d move down here and buy the house next door to us so we could hang out and be friends. Alas.<\/p>\n Here’s Terron. Nice guy. Great writer.<\/p><\/div>\n Anyway, it was with some trepidation that I started the 400-page book. A day later, when I\u2019d raced through it, caring about the characters and their journey and their relationships and their whole fantastical land and their powers and their family and everything<\/i>, I thought, \u201cYeah. This is really good!\u201d<\/p>\n And so with all that as preface, I hereby give you my review.<\/p>\n INSIGHT, the debut novel by junior high English teacher Terron James, is an epic fantasy, the first in the BEHOLDERS series. Set in Appernysia, the Appernysians are living in constant fear of bands of marauders called Rayders, who were exiled from Appernysia several hundred years before.<\/p>\n Brother and sister duo, Lon and Mellai Marcs, miraculously avoid a Rayder attack when Lon inexplicably creates a force field around the two of them when they are children. Because of this, their parents whisk them away from their home village in fear that the Rayders will come seeking whatever caused the force field.<\/p>\n The story really starts years later as Lon is about to wed the prettiest girl in their new village, and his sister Mellai is trying to avoid being wed to whomever her mother is foisting on her. Rayders attack again. Lon must make a choice\u2014stay and protect his family or journey to the land of Rayder Exile. Either choice is fraught with danger, especially as Lon discovers he may be the key to a secret long prophesied.<\/p>\n The story kept me turning pages. I even got a sunburn while I read it outside. I loved that it was a clean read, something I\u2019d gladly pass on to any of my kids. I loved that it had good action, but also a great balance of relationships. And there was some humor. Blessed humor. (Don\u2019tcha hate it when a story takes itself so seriously there\u2019s no humor? Such a drag.)<\/p>\n Anyway, if you are a fantasy reader, I highly recommend this book. If you\u2019re not a fantasy reader but want a good gateway into the genre, this could be it!<\/p>\n Here\u2019s a link to the author\u2019s guest post here on this blog <\/a>a few weeks back. Follow him on Facebook<\/a> and\/or Twitter<\/a> to get the latest on his books and writing.<\/p>\n\n It\u2019s been a few years since I last read an epic fantasy. When did the first Lord of the Rings movie come out? 2001? I think so. I remember at the time my best friend said, \u201cWe\u2019re having a Lord of the Rings party, and we\u2019re only inviting people who totally appreciate the book, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"bgseo_title":"","bgseo_description":"","bgseo_robots_index":"","bgseo_robots_follow":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[26],"tags":[767,519,520,487,230],"class_list":["post-925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-reviews","tag-book-reviews","tag-epic-fantasy","tag-good-reads","tag-insight","tag-terron-james"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2OUjT-eV","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.authorjennifergriffith.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.authorjennifergriffith.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.authorjennifergriffith.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.authorjennifergriffith.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.authorjennifergriffith.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=925"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.authorjennifergriffith.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/925\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":939,"href":"https:\/\/www.authorjennifergriffith.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/925\/revisions\/939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.authorjennifergriffith.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.authorjennifergriffith.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.authorjennifergriffith.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Here's](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.authorjennifergriffith.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/Terron-James.jpg?resize=300%2C300&ssl=1\")
<\/a>![\"insight\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.authorjennifergriffith.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/insight.jpg?resize=300%2C240&ssl=1\")
<\/a><\/p>\n