Month: August 2025

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The Halls of the Shadow King: The Apprentice by W. Tod Newman

The Halls of the Shadow King: The Apprentice book cover. Copyright 2025 Desdichado Books

Here’s the review I gave my own book on Goodreads. I thought anyone stumbling across this blog might find it interesting and amusing to see an author reviewing their own book! 🙂

Also, funny note. Because I did a pretty poor job on my main character’s right hand in my first book cover, someone accused me of using AI. This bothered me, so I went into GIMP (my image editing tool) and edited the line art layer to make the hands better (apparently AI still can’t do hands?). And then I fixed some other stuff that had been annoying me (too dark, didn’t like the clothes Amal was wearing, background was a bit too formal, etc.). So now the new, improved book cover is loaded here. Let me know what you think.

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I really enjoyed reading this book, but maybe that’s because I also enjoyed writing it! For anyone who is considering taking the time to read it, here are a few of the things I was thinking over the last number of years that I spent writing. (of course, I’m giving it 5 stars; if I felt otherwise I’d still be writing!)

After spending several years crafting this story, I’m deeply grateful it found its way into the world—and honestly surprised by how much I enjoyed revisiting Amal’s journey as a reader rather than writer. If you’re considering this book, let me share what drove me through those long nights of research and revision.

Our culture desperately needs more characters who wield great power with genuine humility. It’s perhaps the rarest combination in literature—and life—yet through faithful effort, it remains possible. Amal represents my small attempt to show that extraordinary gifts need not corrupt when carried by someone who truly doesn’t want them and is driven by the service of others.

I also long to see readers rediscover the magic hidden in life’s unexplainable mysteries. We’ve spent decades drowning in stifling rationalism, forgetting that wonder exists in the spaces between what we know and what we can prove. Gabriel GarcĂ­a Márquez was the master of this delicate balance—if my words can someday kindle even a fraction of the awe his prose once gave me, I’ll consider this endeavor worthwhile.

Most importantly, I hope to bring history alive in ways that point toward something higher than much contemporary literature attempts. The third century was brutal, beautiful, and utterly transformative—a time when ordinary people faced extraordinary choices that echo through our world today.

If this resonates with you, please join Amal’s journey. I’ve tried to keep the price accessible because stories should build bridges, not barriers. Stick with me, because the next two books will show how determined people, aligned with service and grace, really can change the world—one hard-fought and seemingly-impossible choice at a time.


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Book Review – The Lonesome Dove Series

A Journey through McMurtry’s American West

Lonesome Dove, the TV Miniseries. Image from Rotten Tomatoes.

Reading Larry McMurtry’s complete Lonesome Dove cycle—from Dead Man’s Walk through Streets of Laredo—feels like witnessing the birth and death of the American frontier through the eyes of unforgettable characters who refuse to leave you long after the final page.

While I’d cherished Augustus McCrae and Woodrow Call for years through the original Lonesome Dove novel and its well-received television adaptation, experiencing their full arc across all four books revealed psychological depths of character development I never suspected. Call, in particular, emerges as one of literature’s most complex protagonists—a man whose apparent neurodivergence and emotional rigidity inflict profound damage on those around him, yet who finds a kind of grace in his final years through the devotion of a sweet, blind Mexican girl who becomes his unlikely salvation.

McMurtry populates this sweeping saga with characters who transcend the typical Western archetype. Famous Shoes, the Kickapoo tracker who threads through all four novels, embodies a vanished wisdom that our modern world desperately lacks—his understanding of landscape and human nature feels almost mystical. Clara Allen stands as one of American literature’s great female characters, simultaneously gracious and irascible, approaching life’s complexities with a pragmatic wisdom that makes her rejection of Gus all the more poignant and understandable.

The author’s gift for capturing authentic frontier voices shines through his integration of historical figures like cattleman Charlie Goodnight and hunter Ben Lilly—men whose larger-than-life exploits feel both mythic and utterly believable. McMurtry’s settings pulse with life, from the unforgiving Texas plains to the brutal Mexican borderlands, creating a geography that becomes as much a character as any human protagonist.

Yet the series isn’t without its flaws. McMurtry occasionally stumbles over continuity between volumes, and his prose—while effective—sometimes feels workmanlike when a more lyrical voice (think Cormac McCarthy) might have elevated certain scenes to the heights that they truly deserved. The emotional undercurrents that drive some of the lesser characters occasionally surface too briefly, leaving the reader hungry for deeper exploration.

Despite these quibbles, the Lonesome Dove saga succeeds magnificently as both entertainment and (occasionally) literature. It’s a work that honors the brutal poetry of the American West while never romanticizing its violence or overlooking its moral complexities—a fitting epitaph for a vanished world and the remarkable people who shaped it.