Reviews of Artemis Rising

What pro­fes­sional book review­ers are saying . . .

What a spell­bind­ing book you have writ­ten here, in prose that is poetry in motion. Everything con­spires to weave an enchant­ing web from which the reader has no wish to escape.

You have mas­ter­ful use of imagery, cadence, poetic flow, and the essences of our pagan roots all melded together—with a bit of Shakespeare’s use of ship­wrecks thrown in for good mea­sure—and the the sea-​​change you have wrought I think will be in me.

The char­ac­ters too are each pow­er­ful and using the ancient con­trasts of sun and moon, and the images of Greek mythol­ogy only enhances this: Arethusa, Diogo, Jacinta, Tristao, and each of them in their own way wholly engag­ing, believ­able, and hypnotic.

I can’t really think of any­thing more to say except I have been wholly engrossed; I have read all of your chap­ters more slowly than is my wont sim­ply because I could not bear to miss a moment of savour­ing the beauty of your prose, the power of your story, the strength of your imagery, the scents, the sounds, the con­trasts ... this is just one of those magic books where I want to ban­ish the world and all its cares and inter­rup­tions and immerse myself in this heady passion-​​flower of a book which you have cre­ated.

—M.M. Bennetts, author of May 1812 and Of Honest Fame

—Linda Horne, EbookItReviews​.com

This book is filled with a com­plex yet fluid retelling of two sep­a­rate myths that have been intri­cately weaved together in a way that it pulls you head-​​first into the story. Throughout it all I found myself com­pletely entranced by this, and I had a hard time putting down my Kindle once I got started. Only for the need of sleep did it take me two days to fin­ish. The plot itself is one that is beau­ti­fully writ­ten and well thought out, though I will admit if you are read­ing this half­heart­edly you may become con­fused at times. I adore mythol­ogy and I really like when authors come up with a cre­ative way to inte­grate them into their own sto­ries, and I can hon­estly say that I found this to be com­pletely orig­i­nal and fresh. I was famil­iar with the story of Tristan and Isolde but not that of Alpheus and Arethusa, and even now that I’ve become famil­iar with both I can see that they have no true con­nec­tions. However Lasota man­aged to pull these two sto­ries together and com­bine them in such a way that I’ll prob­a­bly never looked at them the same again. After all the emo­tions that pulled me back and forth and though I was sad to see it over, the end­ing was per­fect to me as it felt complete.

I really liked the main char­ac­ter Eva. She was strong willed and deter­mined despite her trou­bled life, and even in the tough­est of times she attempted to keep her chin up and keep mov­ing for­ward. She made mis­takes of course but she learned from them. The growth of her char­ac­ter is won­der­ful and believ­able. She goes from being a girl who is scared and alone, to a woman who knows exactly who she is and will not allow any­one else to tell her oth­er­wise. Tristan is just as lovely, and he grew just as much as Eva through­out the story. The rela­tion­ship between them is sweet and yet so frus­trat­ing, which is exactly what the char­ac­ters feel. Diogo was very easy to hate and very easy to be deceived by in the begin­ning. Overall Lasota did a won­der­ful job of cre­at­ing char­ac­ters that were truly human in their deci­sions and desires, and the way she wrote the story really gave you a sense of every emo­tion that coursed through these people.

—Michelle Gilmore, In Libris Veritas

What authors and read­ers are saying . . .

Artemis Rising is an intrigu­ing and com­plex tale, yet in the hands of author Cheri Lasota, the story flows seam­lessly, gath­er­ing the reader into a world so real you can smell the berg­amot along with Eva, feel the pitch­ing of a storm-​​tossed ship, and the sweet taste of first love. Yet Eva’s world, Arethusa’s world, is one of magic, a place where themes of ancient myth and reli­gious thought meet, con­front, and strug­gle for supremacy. When Eva is ship­wrecked on the Azores Islands off Portugal, she encoun­ters Tristao, the blue-​​eyed boy who will fight for her against the beguil­ing but ruth­less pur­suit of Diogo. Be pre­pared for shocks, twists, and sus­pense when you read this story. Also be pre­pared for the exquis­ite Portuguese back­ground, its cul­ture, color, and cus­toms. With vel­vety and pow­er­ful prose, Ms. Lasota lets us see, taste, smell, feel, and hear each expe­ri­ence as she guides us through lay­ers of sus­pense, myth, magic, and romance.

—Alice Lynn, Author of Volunteer for Glory

 

This story is a com­plex weave of magic, myth, faith, and love. Arethusa must tread a con­vo­luted path to dis­cov­ery: dis­cov­ery of her­self and what she wants to believe. Who really loves her? Both Diogo and Tristão say they do, yet each, in his own way, lets her down. What do the myths offer? What do they demand? Tucked away on these gor­geous blue islands, Arethusa puts her child­hood behind. She becomes a woman. She makes her own choices in a jour­ney that takes her from adver­sity to tri­umph. A jour­ney worth traveling.

—Rebecca Lochlann, Author of The Child of Erinyes Series

This is an engross­ing novel (I read the whole in a few days!) in which sev­eral strands of myth com­bine to cre­ate a com­plex yet beau­ti­fully sim­ple romance. It is at its high­est level an explo­ration of fun­da­men­tal philo­soph­i­cal questions—the debate between fate and choice, the nature of love and desire, the tena­cious and often dan­ger­ous hold of belief on the human psy­che. At bot­tom, and the rea­son why you will love it, this is a bil­dungsro­man about a girl find­ing her way to adult­hood and a story about two lovers both sep­a­rated and entwined by their beliefs.

—Alexandra Riley, author of The Fairy Circle

What a story-​​teller you are. After your atmos­pheric and intense first chap­ter, I had to read on, and found myself wholly caught-​​up in your nar­ra­tive. The world that you con­jure is some­how both imme­di­ate and exotic, and is beguil­ing for that. This is the sort of writ­ing in which it is impos­si­ble to dis­cern the work­ings, the scaf­fold­ing and the glue: it is effort­less to read, which speaks of care­ful craft­ing and pol­ish­ing, and your set­ting is con­vinc­ing with­out ever once feel­ing like a his­tory les­son. I felt com­fort­able in it—so much so, that I for­got about being a reviewer and just became a reader, lost in an engross­ing story. I would buy this.

—Louise Galvin, author of Souvenirs

I love how you weave the storyteller’s spell, on a great ocean jour­ney intro­duc­ing the threads of leg­end, mythol­ogy, setting...and then one by one, the warp and weft of your char­ac­ters—arche­types all. There is such power in names. I like how you have used them, almost like cloth­ing for your characters.

—Toby Neal, author of Hawaiian Orchid

Jeepers! This is stun­ning stuff. It reads like one of the clas­sics in its beauty and depth. This is more than just a story; it really is art, but with­out the pre­ten­tious­ness so often found in ‘lit­er­ary fic­tion’. You make it look so easy and effort­less. I’ve gotta say, Diogo is my favourite in this. So real. The whole thing reads like a dream which is unset­tling and yet at the same time you don’t want to wake up. Ace!

—Jonathan Quinn, co-​​author of Palace of Wonder

Marvellous to weave myths into a story so that they feel real. I love all the myths of Greece, Britain ... any­where. They belong to another world and infuse this mate­r­ial mis­ery we so often live in with pure magic. The atmos­phere of the story is cer­tainly mag­i­cal, I felt as if rock­ing on the boat at the first chap­ter.

—Loretta Proctor, author of The Crimson Bed

I imag­ine that any­one who enjoyed Diana Gabaldon’s kind of book would like this one *at least* as much. The depth and truth­ful­ness of the research really shows here.

—Maria Bustillos, author of Dorkismo