Happenstance Found cover art

Happenstance Found

Books of Umber, Book 1

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About this listen

 Acclaimed author P. W. Catanese presents Happen­stance Found, the first in the rollicking Books of Umber fantasy series. Happenstance, a boy with unusual green eyes, awakens with no memories. Falling in with the adventurer Lord Umber and his band of misfits, this boy with many uncanny gifts soon discovers that he may be the strangest one of all.©2009 P.W. Catanese (P)2009 Recorded Books, LLC Fairy Tales, Folk Tales & Myths Fantasy Fiction Science Fiction & Fantasy

Critic reviews

"Catanese packs a lot into the book: rich characterizations (Umber, who turns out to be from another dimension, suffers from depression and wishes he had his meds), well-choreographed action sequences and genuinely surprising twists at the end. An auspicious start to the series." ( Publishers Weekly)
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This is a delightful tale which unwinds with delicious hints of the past. present and future of the boy, intertwined with that of a man who has come into the world from the future and an almost medieval feel to the world which they both must now inhabit. Your initial scepticism of this tale about a boy who wakes, he knows not where, in a darkness in which only he can see clearly, and without a name or a past, would be unfounded.
Happenstance, who is told his name by a voice whose speaker even he cannot see, is taken out of the darkness and onto a boat. The physical fact of being on a boat, terrifies him, not so much because of the very odd nature of the boat, but by his intense fear of water. The cause of that can only be guessed at, and perhaps may be explained by the fact that when he first awakes, he is soaking wet!
The world he finds himself in is one in which magic is normal. Happenstance and his new friends (a giant of a man who must speak the truth; a young girl who has lost one hand and his new master, a man who is almost always fascinated with the natural world around them and who is usually very happy), soon find themselves followed. The adventure begins!
I loved both the writing and the narrator and I look forward to 'reading' the next book in the series.

A Happy Happenstance

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