Life hasn’t been kind to Oliver Toye.

As if juvenile diabetes isn’t enough, he’s forced to live with his tyrannical grandmother in a snow-bound house. He spends his days doing chores and the nights listening to the forest rumble.

But when he discovers the first leather-bound journal, the family secrets begin to surface. The mystery of his great-grandfather’s voyage to the North Pole is revealed. That’s when the snowman appears.

Magical and mysterious, the snowman will save Oliver more than once. But when the time comes for Oliver to discover the truth, will he have the courage? When Flury needs him, will he have the strength? When believing isn’t enough, will he save the snowman from melting away?

Because sometimes even magic needs a little help.

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MY REVIEW of Flury: Journey of a Snowman by Tony Bertauski

I have read end reviewed Tony Bertauski’s original stories of Claus: Legend of the Fat Man and Jack: The Tale of Frost, so I am eager to begin on Flury: Journey of a Snowman. Tony’s ability to spin a tale and create new worlds is amazing. Every time I open one of his books, I am ready to be taken to a place I have never been before and meet characters that worm their way into my heart, at least most of them, and leaving me hoping I will see them again.

Malcolm Toye became separated from the group that traveled to the North Pole. He knew he wasn’t going to make it out alive, as he closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep.

Oliver and his mom had just arrived at their new home in Colorado. Actually, it was his grandmother’s house, the Toye Residence.

Oliver is used to spending a lot of time alone. He felt even more isolated since moving here, until he made friends with Molly. Molly is a wonderful girl that fits Oliver perfectly. He has juvenile diabetes and has to keep a close eye on his sugar level.

Grandmother is more than prim and proper. Is she purposely cruel? She has rules and one of them is to be in the house before the sun goes down. Why? After waking to sounds crashing through the forest and trees falling, he didn’t question it.

In his explorations, he finds a trunk filled with curious objects. It belonged to his grandfather, Malcolm Toye. What really intrigued him was the journals and the blue orb that seems warm in his hand. Oliver becomes enraptured by Malcolm’s journals. He carries the orb he discovered everywhere with him.

His cousins act like they were trained by terrorists. They could use some lessons from Emily Post. Henry is a little monster. They wouldn’t include him in their games, but after they were gone, he looked for their trail and followed it. Will his inquisitiveness be the end of him or save the day?

Now the adventure really begins at 20% into the book.

This series of books is joyous fun, full of vivid images of the characters, be they human or….Do you believe in Santa, snowmen and elves?

The world building is so imaginative I can feel the light touch of snowflakes on my face as I tip my head back to look up at the sky. Afterwards, I can bask in the warm glow of the fire.

It brought back memories of standing under snow covered trees and shaking their branches until I was covered in the fluffy white stuff. What are some of your best memories of snow and the winter season.

Oliver won me over in the opening pages. His sense of adventure and curiosity led me to follow him through the pages, doing the chores, wandering the property, exploring Malcom’s treasures. And I was very curious about why he shouldn’t be out at night.

Tony can spin a tale that has me believing, taking me back to that time when all things are possible.

Best one yet! I love “Frosty’s” story and him too.

5 Stars – Would Buy It For Others (lol)

I received this book in return for an honest and unbiased review.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

During the day, I’m a horticulturist. While I’ve spent much of my career designing landscapes or diagnosing dying plants, I’ve always been a storyteller. My writing career began with magazine columns, landscape design textbooks, and a gardening column at the Post and Courier (Charleston, SC). However, I’ve always fancied fiction.

My grandpa never graduated high school. He retired from a steel mill in the mid-70s. He was uneducated, but he was a voracious reader. I remember going through his bookshelves of paperback sci-fi novels, smelling musty old paper, pulling Piers Anthony and Isaac Asimov off shelf and promising to bring them back. I was fascinated by robots that could think and act like people. What happened when they died?

I’m a cynical reader. I demand the writer sweep me into his/her story and carry me to the end. I’d rather sail a boat than climb a mountain. That’s the sort of stuff I want to write, not the assigned reading we got in school. I want to create stories that kept you up late.

Having a story unfold inside your head is an experience different than reading. You connect with characters in a deeper, more meaningful way. You feel them, empathize with them, cheer for them and even mourn. The challenge is to get the reader to experience the same thing, even if it’s only a fraction of what the writer feels. Not so easy.

In 2008, I won the South Carolina Fiction Open with Four Letter Words, a short story inspired by my grandfather and Alzheimer’s Disease. My first step as a novelist began when I developed a story to encourage my young son to read. This story became The Socket Greeny Saga. Socket tapped into my lifetime fascination with consciousness and identity, but this character does it from a young adult’s struggle with his place in the world.

After Socket, I thought I was done with fiction. But then the ideas kept coming, and I kept writing. Most of my work investigates the human condition and the meaning of life, but not in ordinary fashion. About half of my work is Young Adult (Socket Greeny, Claus, Foreverland) because it speaks to that age of indecision and the struggle with identity. But I like to venture into adult fiction (Halfskin, Drayton) so I can cuss. Either way, I like to be entertaining.

And I’m a big fan of plot twists.

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I have read the first two books in the unique and original Claus series and would like to share them with you.

MY REVIEW

MY REVIEW

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