White Dawn: Review and Giveaway

This is the beginning of a new era.

The slate is clean.

A white dawning has emerged and I’m ready to face the day.

AURORA WHITCOMB has taken the place as Chief of Ky, but the ghosts of her past continue to haunt her future.

RAIN TURNER has lost the the embers that kept his hope burning, and all he’s left with is a raging desire to avenge the love of his life.

With an insatiable hatred toward each other, Aurora and Rain must learn to work together to bring the country back to its feet. In order to do so, they must be invincible. But being invincible isn’t only about conquering the battles in the physical world. When their journey to rescue Ky takes a violent turn for the worst, Aurora and Rain must learn the true meaning of forgiveness, not only for each other, but for those who haunt their pasts.

Hiya all,

Today’s the day I get to tell you about a book I was quite looking forward too. White Dawn, the third book of Sara Baysinger’s Black Tiger series.

First of all, I love the cover of this book. It fits the book so well and has an air of hope the others don’t. Black Tiger had defiance, Ashen City a sense of despairation. This is the morning, the aftermath, a kind of resurrection.

Now before you go read on, I must warn you that this review will not be free of spoilers for the previous books and will have a couple spoiler for White Dawn. So if you haven’t read the books or want to start White dawn with no extra knowledge, skip this and jump down to the giveaway at the bottom.

*

**

***

**SPOILERS**

***

**

*

Okay, now I can get into the review. This was possible my least favourite book of the series for a number of small reasons. First, Ember isn’t around, and she is my favourite character, the girlwe saw the last two books through. Until I saw the description for this book, I hoped Ember would live. I should have known better, but the main character usually survives for the whole story.

Instead we are left with Aurora and Rain. Aurora, insecure in her postion, afraid of upsetting the patricians by implementing the changes she knows must be made, too quickly. And Rain, angry, hurt, hating Aurora for surviving while Ember dies.

Sara managed to make me slightly disgusted with Rain again. He gives into his bad qualities in this book and he’s so stubborn in his belief that Aurora is trouble. And he wants to kill her. Murderous characters are not the kind I like to hang around with.

As for the other characters, Sara does a brilliant job. Krin Turner comes to the fore as Aurora’s advisor. Mcallister becomes her friend. Even Olivia Doss steps up and plays a major part. And Titus, well Titus has another side that’s a little more understandable than what we’ve seen before. He’s still a totally messed up person, but I pity him more than I despise him. He’s lonely, not loved by anyone. He hopes ruling will crush Aurora, yet he gives her advice.

This was an excellent depiction of the difficulties of restoring a corrupt government to something good. A dictator can’t simply make everything right instantly. There are internal and external problems. Along with these come moral dilemmas. Should you sacrifice a few people to get food for the rest? Should you apease the people, or do the right thing? Peace and coercion or righteousness and war?

The uneasy alliance between Aurora and Rain is facinating to read. She goes to such lengths to convince him she’d not the enemy. (Really Aurora, how can it remotely be a good idea to set out alone with someone who just tried to kill you.) It’s just beginning to work, and there’s actually some good btween them before everything goes wrong.  I should have known Titus would have planned somethign terrible, yet i didn’t see this coming at all. Neither did they.

So the white plague breaks out, thousands of plagued victims are attacking Ky, and almost everyone blames Aurora. Rain almost does, but finally sees reasons. They call the Indy tribe for help, they arrive with a cure, and the one person we’ve been hoping to see since her dead body was carried off in the prologue, and everthing is fine now. The end.

Actually not the end. It couldn’t be that simple. Titus has escaped to nashville where Gideon is and they have to hatch a plan to rescue him. So we get creepy Nashville, people almost dying, some awesome  fighting, and Titus being selfless. Yeah, I’d never thought I’d see that. But he does love Aurora is his own twisted way.

This book dealt with some interesting family strife issues. Chief Aden and Thomas Turner’s abuse of their children, Krin Turner leaving her sons to be Aurora’s mentor, sibling relationships.

Now I’ve got to come to the disappointing bits. I had great hopes from the first book that the subtle Christian themes would grow, that the small knowledge of God would grow. But It really doesn’t. Instead we get this:

“Huh. I’ve never imagined God as a she before. God’s always referred to as he in the Bible, but…the Bible was written in patriarchal society by people in that society. I don’t know if it’s even accurate to place any gender on God. God is beyond gender, beyond any human comprehension. Yet, as humans, we have a need to put some human characteristics on God just as a way to relate and feel more personal.” He looks at me, his eyes alight with passion. Rain always was one to enjoy philosophical conversations. “I think if seeing God as a she is the way you personally connect with God, then it’s absolutely valid. Not wrong or right, but just another vein God uses to speak to you specifically.” He shoves his hands into his pockets and looks forward; the wheels in his head clearly spinning. “I’ll be on your team, Aurora.” He looks at me again, his eyes sincere. “And time will tell if our actions are really motivated by belief in the same God—she, he, it, whatever form God’s energy takes.”

Now there’s truth that God is beyond human comprehension, but he himself used male pronouns. There’s some female imagery, and acharacteristics, but i have serious problems with God being called she. Who are we to define God? I don’t think we can approach him just as we wish to. So that theological disagreement, combines with the lack of other substance disappointed me.

On the flipside, there is a good message of forgiveness and I enjoyed most of the book.

About the Author

Sara was born in the heart of the Andes Mountains in Ecuador where she spent her early life exploring uncharted lands and raising chickens. She now makes her home among the endless cornfields of Indiana with her husband and two children…and she still raises chickens. Her dystopian novel BLACK TIGER was self-published in 2016. When not getting lost in a book, Sara can be found gardening, devouring chocolate, and running off the sugar-high from said chocolate.

Yuo can find Sara is all of these many places:

Website / Facebook / Twitter / Instagram / Goodreads

Giveaway

Don’t miss out on the exciting finale of the Black Tiger Series! Enter to win a signed paperback of WHITE DAWN! Haven’t had a chance to begin this thrilling series or wanting to get one of the other books in paperback? No worries! Two winners will receive a signed paperback of their choice from any book in the series! (US only. E-copies available INT.)