"Summon the Light" by Tor Thibeaux

My dad died three weeks ago yesterday.  While traveling to Iowa for his funeral, I read Summon the Light by Tor Thibeaux, a retelling of Shakespeare's The Tempest that's part of the Classic Retold series.  This is a slender novella, barely a hundred pages, but it was exactly the representation of hope and healing I needed at the time.

Nick works as a smuggler after barely surviving the epic fight between mighty forces of evil and good.  The fight killed most of his friends and left the spirit Ariel in a magical coma.  Nick goes through his days feeling numb and detached until he begins to hear a beautiful song that urges him to return to the island he once called home.  Once there, he strives to rebuild the island's ruined chapel.  With each stone he replaces, the song grows stronger, and so does his hope.  

The book's message is one of not giving up even when you are devastated, of doing the next task that comes to hand even if it seems meaningless.  That confidence that even mundane things are still important in the face of great tragedy is something I absolutely needed reinforced during that road trip to Iowa.  I'm so thankful I grabbed this particular book off my TBR shelves, seemingly at random, when I was packing things to read on the trip -- I think the Lord must have guided my hand at that moment.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG for fantasy violence.  No objectionable content.

This is my 25th book read from my TBR shelves for the 2024 Mount TBR reading challenge.