Review: Mantle: The Return of the Sha

Mantle: The Return of the Sha by Gary Bregar
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I read Mantle; The Return of the Sha by Gary Bregar in four or five days. The story features a young female heroine who grew up feeling like an outcast because she didn't have a magical power like everyone else. But she actually did and didn't know it. She later discovers that she is a sha or a good witch, like Glenda in the Wizard of Oz. I could relate to her feelings of isolation and having only a few friends because I grew up deaf in a hearing world. I liked Lizabet's rambunctious character. She is also an independent and self-reliant girl.

On the other hand, her sister, Bella, is a beautiful woman who caught the eye of the king during the last leg of his travels around the kingdom. A quick romance ensued. The wedding that followed reminded me of Princess Diana's elaborate wedding to Prince Charles in England. In the story, the celebrations that followed the wedding were lavish. Citizens celebrated all night. Fairies were not necessarily under the king's rule, but they contributed to the revelries. Paired fairies did an aerial dance inside of floating bubbles and their movements were synchronized to music. This imagery invoked a feeling of delightfulness within me. The author is very creative!

The author also put forth a concept of balancing evil with good and vice versa. Although good and evil are supposed to be polar opposites, it may actually be the case that they are a range of judgements from good to bad, positive to negative, or excellent to poor. It reminds me of the adage that one person's trash could be another person's treasure. Wisdom comes from knowing that grey areas exist within morality and ethics. Everything is not in black and white. A person's choices define who they are when they choose between a greater evil and a lesser evil in an ethical dilemma. We always pray for the highest good for ourselves because what we want may not be in our best interest. The highest good for us may mean some short-term discomfort.

For example, Lizabet suffered some guilt over her use of her magical staff. Her staff, called the Shadowlight, reminded me of the Staff of Destiny in a television episode of Warehouse 13 with a female H.G. Wells on the Syfy channel. The Staff of Destiny had the ability to create powerful earthquakes when it was struck against the ground. The Shadowlight had a similar ability. The king gave Lizabet the Shadowlight because he felt like it was meant for her. She probably listened to the king about how the staff worked and thought it would behave the same way with her. But because she was a sha, the power of the staff was amplified ten times over. Lizabet did not practice using her staff and she was unaware of the amount of power she wielded. She hit the ground with it with the intention of turning the battle's tide over to favor her side. The resulting earthquake was a disaster in some ways and spectacular in others. It caused some loss on her side of the battle because of her naivety.

Overall, I highly recommend this book to young tween girls who need role models that display self-initiative but are only human, not perfect. I thoroughly enjoyed the book because there was a lot of action and adventure in it. It was also an easy read.


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