Revenants: The Odyssey Home by Scott Kauffman REVIEW

Revenants: The Odyssey Home by Scott Kauffman
Published by Moonshine Cove Publishing
Ebook
Published 23 December 2015
275 pages
Review copy

The author gave me a copy of this book and I voluntarily reviewed it. WHAT'S IT'S ABOUT

ONLY BETSY CAN GET HIM HOME IN TIME; ONLY HE CAN BRING HER BACK BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE.

A grief-stricken candy-striper serving in a VA hospital following her brother's death in Viet Nam struggles to return home an anonymous veteran of the Great War against the skullduggery of a congressman who not only controls the hospital as part of his small-town fiefdom but knows the name of her veteran. A name if revealed would end his political ambitions and his fifty-year marriage. In its retelling of Odysseus' journey, Revenants casts a flickering candle upon the charon toll exacted not only from the families of those who fail to return home but of those who do.

OPENING ACT 1 CHAPTER 1 January 1984

Just twelve more days to Christmas and I was totally jazzed.

WHAT I THOUGHT

I thoroughly enjoyed Revenants: The Odyssey Home. Like other reviewers, I found the book slow at first. However, there was something appealing about what I was reading and I kept turning the pages. I just want to say I loved the cover and the premise of Revenants. This is not like other books I've read before and will stay with me for a long time. I've read very little fiction that deals with the horrors of war so the author deserves a round of applause for tacking this subject. Revenants is quite dark and bleak and times and I shed more than a few tears. This book is painfully real at times. War is something swept too often under the carpet because it's unpleasant to share and talk about. We think the horror of war won't touch us if we don't talk about it. Revenants forces us to confront the truth about war. I'm glad I stuck with this book because in the end I couldn't stop reading it. War affects everyone and not just those on the battlefield but the families and friends of those who come home and those who don't. Everyone's pain is just as valid. I'm glad I got a chance to read this and am off to eat chocolate and hug my teddy. I need some love and hugs.