REVIEWED BY CINDY

TITLE: Shade’s Champion

AUTHOR: Cheryl Headford

PUBLISHER: Wayward Ink Publishing

LENGTH: 295 Pages

RELEASE DATE: December 18, 2015

Blurb:

Shade has been kept in the dark for eight long years. Now he’s facing a world that terrifies him. A world that seems to hold no place for him.

When the authorities are unable to find a home for Shade, Penny, reluctantly accepts him into the secure school she manages, despite thinking it’s the wrong place for him. Penny fears for his safety among the other troubled children. In an attempt to forestall the disaster she predicts will happen she appoints one of them as his champion.

Dory, an engaging seventeen year old with mental health issues, is proud to be chosen as Shade’s champion and throws his heart and soul into the job. In doing so he is forced to face the thing he fears most – his own emotions.

An unexpected friendship begins to grow into something more, until a spiteful act tears them apart and leaves them broken.

When Dory falls ill, Shade is forced to face his demons and struggles to find the strength and courage he needs to fight for the right to love, and to be there for his champion when he needs him most.

Review:

I fell in love with Cheryl Headford’s writing when I read The Face in the Window. When this story came up for review I jumped at the chance and I’m so glad I did.

Dory is an amazing kid. He’s smart and funny and has an excellent heart. Fate has both blessed and cursed him with some issues that he’s trying so hard to overcome, but it’s hard to be the good boy he longs to be.

Then along come’s Shade. Shade needs a friend and champion desperately and when Miss Penny, who runs the children’s facility where Dory lives, gives Dory the job, he jumps at it with a vengeance. His first glimpse of Shade makes him determined to do his best to help the younger boy who’s suffered so much in his young life.

Penny, Rich and Max are the ones tasked with caring for the children in the home and they do it to the best of their abilities, even if they make the wrong decisions for the right reasons once in a while.

The doctors the boys encounter are very flawed, although at least one has the kids best interests at heart and I loved meeting Dory’s mam. She loves her child fiercely even if she doesn’t always know how to help him.

I fell so in love with Dory and Shade and loved reading how they both blossomed and grew because of each other and I cheered for them the whole way. They are both vulnerable and sweet, completely devoted to each other and just compelling to read.

The writer really knows how to draw the reader and pull them along for a hell of an emotional ride that had me laughing one minute and in tears the next. I was in fear for my happy ending for a while and I was gearing up to throw my computer across the room, but Dory and Shade pulled through and made my year so far.

My only issue with this book was a couple of editing issues that threw me off for a moment, but all in all, it’s probably the best thing I’ve read in 2016 so far.

Kudos to Cheryl for creating believable, lovable characters that stole my heart from the first page.

Rating:

Buy Links:

Amazon

Wayward Ink

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