Home of the Brave

Hard working and dedicated doctor Karen Anderson has come across and purchased an antique maple wood bed. With a fluffy feather mattress, it holds the promise of ease and comfort. Indeed, the bed is just that and more. Karen soon discovers that bed seems to bridge the modern world to times past. At first, Karen believes that she is dreaming of being back in time and working to heal an Indian warrior named Jumping Bull. She soon realizes that this is no dream and via the bed, she is actually traveling back in time.

One of Jumping Bull’s warriors, Standing Deer catches a glimpse of Karen when she first travels back in time and he ponders what he will do with her…kill her, sell her to another tribe or keep her for himself. So taken with her beauty he reaches out to Karen and realizes she is the woman he has waited for.

After a few forays back in time, Karen receives a call from the bed’s former owners and the news that they have found the canopy. When Karen goes to retrieve the canopy, the daughters of the former owner tell her a bit about their mother, the bed and growing up in a house where the room that housed the bed was always locked. Believing she holds the key to traveling back and forth in time and that she can truly put her medical knowledge to work, Karen embarks on the journey of a lifetime—simultaneously living in two worlds. It is not long before she finds more than a passing attraction for Standing Deer and their relationship must be tested.

This reviewer is an avid fan of both time travels and westerns and eagerly anticipated reading Ms. Ackerson’s book. It was a sad disappointment on several fronts. On a personal level, a little research would have gone a long way. For instance, Ms. Ackerson refers to schizophrenia as being a “dual personality”. It is not. Schizophrenia is a mental illness that is indicative of a shattered mind where paranoia and delusions rein. It is not a multiple personality disorder.

When Karen and her friend Bonnie discuss the symbols on the bed there is a reference to witchcraft and a supposition that it is evil. Witchcraft is the only spiritual practice that has never killed another in its name. There then seems to be a reference to what sounds like a six pointed star – or 3 overlapping triangles which would seem to be the Star of David. Neither the pentagram nor Star of David is an evil talisman.

Those inaccuracies aside, HOME OF THE BRAVE was extremely difficult to read to the end. With tenses changing in the middle of sentences, two or more points of view in the same paragraph and most of the story told in the omniscient point of view made for a difficult read. For this reviewer, stories told from the omniscient point of view border on boring and the flip-flopping back and forth between the present and past tense in sentences on almost every page made the story hard to follow. Some solid editing would have alleviated these problems.

This reviewer finds it exceeding difficult to write a less than positive review because when an author writes a book he or she is gifting a part of themselves to their readers. They open up a piece of their creativity and present it. It takes great courage to write a book, submit it and go through the publishing process. It is not pleasant to tell someone that their goal was not met.

It is not possible to recommend this book to most populations because of the factual inaccuracies and poor grammar, yet Ms. Ackerson has a unique and intriguing method of time travel. Imagine going to bed and night and being able to go virtually anywhere you could wish.

Ms. Ackerson is encouraged to continue to write, and with solid research and editing will be among the best.

December 2006