Malachi Cyr is having a fantastic blog tour for Through All Things, a historical fiction novel! I am super stoked, y’all, and will be doing a book spotlight, book review, and author interview! Oh, and there’s an epic giveaway going on… You won’t wanna miss this.

 

THROUGH ALL THINGS

Loved ones must be rescued.

His brothers depend on him for survival.

The trail behind him is already stained with pain and loss.

Allen is only seventeen, but tragedy and a strong sense of duty already weigh on his shoulders. As the French and Indians wage brutal warfare on the English settlers, Allen embarks on a treacherous journey to free his captive sister and her friend.

With little hope of survival and even less for success, Allen knows he needs God to do the impossible. But if God is able to do all things, why does everything seem to be going wrong?

 

AUTHOR BIO

Malachi is a Christian, homeschooled teenager who highly enjoys putting the stories from his imagination down on paper.
He enjoys reading, writing, airsofting, sword fighting, frizbee, woodworking, Bible studies, working with his Dad, hiking, camping, generally doing stuff with his friends, and too many other things to count.
He writes to
1. Glorify and honor God in his stories.
2. Make the stories that he’s played up in his head come to life.
3. Have fun.

Blog: Brainstorms with Rain

Goodreads: Malachi Cyr

Generation Rising: Malachi Cyr

 

BOOK REVIEW

In short, this book is one I want to have on my shelves just so I can pick it up every now and then, to remember. Remember how that no matter the pain we face, God is still in control. This is the kinda book that really dug deep for me… And it takes time to process all that these pages held. So I’ll do a quick basis review and then really dig into things…

Rating: 5/5 stars

Writing: It was immediately gripping and everything played out in a flowing, vivid manner. I felt like I was there.

Setting: I’ve read pretty much no historical fiction set in colonial times, and what I have has been like boring toast. This book was incredibly realistic and the locations were all very well done. I really enjoyed it.

Characters: They were all so real. I felt strongly for all of them and their goals, hopes, and emotions were always portrayed and executed astoundingly. The little things all pulled together so well, and I smiled more than once because of how great the characters were (Charlie and Ben, though, guys… And Behr… and Nootau’s story just, so much yes…).

Story/Plot: Where do I start… It was amazing. But a whole lot more on this later. For now, the plot was smooth, well motivated, and very intriguing.  Like I said, books that deal with heavier topics usually don’t hold good places in my hearts because they get darkened so, so easier. Being an empath can be hard. Reading a novel where my own fear are played out? Really hard. And yet, I couldn’t put this book down.

Now, for the deep stuff.

In truth, this book hit some of my own personal, biggest fears. Who doesn’t fear losing family? I’ve always had the fear I’ll lose my family and have to keep pushing on — because by then, I’m thinking ‘why? Why bother fighting if the ones I love are gone?’ I usually avoid fiction with such topics (I don’t watch Red Dawn with my family because, uh, no… thanks…) because I don’t want to empathically think like that. I do it enough on my own. Add fiction, making it all the more vivid? Not a fun choice.

But Through All Things was different. Usually, I’d always remove a star (or more) from a book if it was too sad/someone died, but this book handled things in a way that really opened my eyes… I’ve always been covering the part of me that fears such things — this book opened that fear wide and dealt with it. I found myself strongly relating to the main character, Allen, even though I’ve never personally lost someone dear to me… I had thought about such pains. And in other ways in my life, I really understood the constant ‘why, God? Why are You not hearing me?’ And I cried, y’all. More than once. A couple times.

Still, this book was strangely… uplifting. That word is kinda small. But the book didn’t shy away from raw, chaotic, painful life — and that’s how it is, y’all. Life is so hard. It doesn’t help to say ‘things will be OK because we have God’ — yes. But that doesn’t make life less difficult. I loved this book because it pushed on and showed what the Word of God had to say. God doesn’t say things will be easy. Doesn’t promise us we get to keep our families. But He promises us that with Him, all things are possible. There’s so much to this life, folks, and TAT showed me that living in fear is not something we should do. In Christ, we have power to fight and protect, without living in fear.

AUTHOR INTERVIEW

What inspired you to write Through All Things, and what made you pursue it to the end?

I don’t recall what originally inspired me, but I was re-inspired by watching the movie Alone Yet Not Alone. I had a lot of encouragement to keep at it until the end, and I wanted to see it in print as well. 😉

 

If you could pick one place in this story to go visit for yourself, what place would that be and why?

I would want to visit the Sanford homestead. It’s fictional, so I couldn’t really, but I would like to see it. It’s also about the only “Place” in my story other than Cedarville or the Indian village, since the entire time the boys are on the move. If I got the opportunity to visit a real location from my story, it would have to be the St. Lawrence River (of course it would need to be the location I picked out on Google Maps when I was writing this story). That would be cool.

What is one major lesson God showed you while you worked on TAT?

So I thought that I had learned the lesson of this story about trusting God through hard times, but while I was writing it came true in a whole new way since I have a friend who is battling both Lymphoma cancer and Lyme disease. Seeing him suffer made me want to question why God is doing this, and then my own writing is dealing with that exact question.

Do you see a lot of yourself in Allen, the main character?

I can at times, more so than many of my other characters.

If there’s one thing you pray this story gives its readers, what would that be?

I want to leave people with hope and a trust that God does know best. We all go through a lot of difficult times, and we often either question why God is putting us through the trial or forget that He is sovereignly directing it it in the first place and begin to think that we’re all alone. What we have to remember is that He does all things well, that it all will work together for our good, and that He is with us all the way.

 

SCHEDULE

July 9th

Liberty H @ https://goneinadream.wordpress.com/: Book Review

July 10th

Anna Willis @ https://astorynerdslife.wordpress.com/: Character Interview

July 11th

Angela Watts @ https://thepeculiarmessenger.wordpress.com/: Author Interview/Book Spotlight/Book Review

July 12th

Kaylee @ http://kayleeskindofwrites.blogspot.com/: Book Review

July 13th

Maggie Joy @https://myatticcorner.wordpress.com/: Author Interview

July 14th

Amie @ https://crazya.blog/: Author/Character Interview

Rosy Marr @ https://rosyswritings.wordpress.com/: Author Interview

 

GIVEAWAY

ENTER HERE!

I am so not fooling around when I say this giveaway is SO EPIC, GUYS. Also, it is domestic only, so international entries will get a $20 amazon eGift card and a Kindle copy of Through All Things. Super neat!

 

~~~

 

Huge thanksto Malachi for letting me take part in the blog tour, and doing the author interview with me. Congratulations on publishing TAT — the world needs to read this book!

God bless,

– Ang

 

ARE YOU EXCITED FOR THROUGH ALL THINGS?! DID YOU ENJOY THE INTERVIEW?