NEW! IS THIS BOOK "BETTER" than "OZ, NARNIA, TOLKIEN AND ALICE AND WONDERLAND?" (Scroll down the page to view new Video Preview of book!) From review by John Lehman BookReview.com(full review available on Amazon.com) This book is a small masterpiece... dazzling climax and theme...in the tradition of Oz, Narnia, Tolkien and Alice in Wonderland only better...haunting... There is not a misstep in this excellent book... the horrific, unsettling anti-climax will make you as eager as I am for the second book of this projected trilogy... unflinchingly explores the full range, not only of love and hate, but also of what it means to live and die. Share this journey with someone special.... at the end of the novel this book becomes unforgettable. ORDER TODAY ONLINE(order button top left of page) OR CALL YOUR BOOKSTORE AND HAVE THEM ORDER FOR YOU Review by Celina Cuadro, bookideas.com When I picked up Duty of Love and read the back cover, I thought it would be similar to the special bit of whimsy Diana Wynne Jones put together in "Howl's Moving Castle". As I started the first chapter, I was guessing that maybe Ronald Neal Green was trying his hand at the interesting story formula employed by William Goldman for "The Princess Bride", a story within a story told to a young child, where various life lessons (and possibly lots of hilarious moments) ensue. By the end of chapter one I knew I had this story pegged all wrong, but I knew I was in for a page-turner that would draw me in and not let go till I finished it.
Ronald Neal Green took great care in keeping the different relationships between his characters tangible and possible, so the reader could resonate with them despite the extraordinary situations the characters had. Compared to most readers, all the characters had extraordinary situations: few of us of course are princes or princesses, wizards or rats who become human---but very few of us as well are dying at the age of 10, nor do we regularly encounter creatures in our closets ominous enough that we sleep with a bat or a steak knife within easy reach. And yet all characters felt real and were well-developed, both as individual characters and in the dynamic they had with the others in the story. Real enough that I found it easy to invest heavily on both sets of siblings (the brother and sister IN the story as well as the two LISTENING TO the story). Maybe it's because I have a little brother, but I think it's probably more because the siblings didn't feel smarmy---to readers who get along with their siblings (and even those who don't, or are an only child), the children's relationships are both believable and endearing. That feeling of realness, together with the author peppering the tale with a sprinkling of the strange, the macabre, and some well-placed twists that added zing, compelled me to commit and see the whole story through.
I started reading The Duty of Love in the subway, on my way to work---I finished it 4 a.m. the next day. I am a slow reader, and there are many urgent and important things to do at work and at home, but it was just as urgent and important to know what happened next and how everyone in the story fared. This is a page-turner partly because it's a thriller, but more so because the reader will care for the protagonists, and will be fueled to read on by the hope that things worked out for them. With each new development, twist, or preparation to face a daunting obstacle, you will want to read "a few pages more" to see if everyone made it out OK. Before you know it you'll reach the end, take a deep breath to steady yourself, and realize what a wonderful tale Ronald Neal Green has spun for you.
SYNOPSIS What would you do if you were a lovelorn wizard with a rat that lived in your hair(your trademark in the very competitive business of wizardry)? Would you turn it into a human to spy on the damsels for you? What if you were a little Princess and no one would listen to you when you tried to warn them about the murderess who was trying to take over the kingdom? Would you go looking for the wizard of Fandon whom no one had ever seen, but had the best fireworks of all, and so, was surely the best of all the wizards? And if you were her brother, the Prince, would you try to rescue her from certain death? What if you were a real life little girl, dying of a mysterious illness, who had an equally mysterious and deadly creature living in your closet? And what if you were her little brother? What would you promise the creature in return for saving the life of your sister?
The story starts with Father, a gifted storyteller, telling a fairy tale to his son, Charles, a troubled loner, and his daughter, Tanya, who is very, very ill. Each night Father tells more of the fairy tale, but later at night and during the day Charles and Tanya have real life problems of their own. Charles must fight his own descent into hellish darkness and Tanya must confront her coming death and the mysterious noises, scratches and bumps that echo every night from her closet.
The Duty of Love is about a girl who is dying physically and a boy who is dying spiritually. It’s about rats that become humans and humans that become lizards. It’s about a wizard who becomes wise and a wizard who tells lies. It’s about well-meant little compromises that turn deadly, and heroic stands against all odds. It is also the story of a mysterious maiden, who is sure she knows the deepest and greatest secret of all. But most of all, it’s about what it means to love and what it means to be human.
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“Now the evil wizard was very lonely. To tell the truth, he was very tired of having a rat running around in his hair. But it was his trademark. When he was a young wizard he wanted to be different. He wanted to stand out from all the other wizards, so he got the rat for his hair and named it Typhus. At first, he dyed the rat red, but no one could see it very well in his red hair, so he dyed it black. Well, it was a sensation. Everybody in the court noticed it and were both disgusted and fascinated by it, and he got all manner of clients who wanted to be in the avant garde and au courant and that sort of thing. Naturally, the other wizards were both jealous and afraid of losing all their business to the evil wizard, Rigirus. So they too tried all manner of outlandish things—tattoos, crazy hairstyles, earrings all over the body. But no matter what they tried, none of them could come up with anything as grand as a rat in the hair. One wizard tried a parrot, but everyone just said he looked liked a pirate. Another wizard even tried putting a baby slither hither and thither in his hair, but he forgot to feed it one night before he went to bed, and, during the night, it ate him.”
“Like they ate the princess,” Charles said with a wicked smile.
“They didn’t eat the princess! Daddy, make him behave.”
“How do you know, smarty? You haven’t heard the whole story.”
“Did the slither hither and thithers eat the princess? Or the prince? You both have to be very quiet and I’ll tell you the whole story.” *** So the wizard was very lonely, and he decided he needed a mate. He looked all around the kingdom. It was a tiny kingdom, but he couldn’t find anybody, for all the beautiful young maidens, even the unbeautiful young maidens, would hide from him. This made the evil wizard very angry, and even the rat would become afraid of him and hide deep, deep in the wizard’s long red hair, not moving or making a sound.
This went on for some months and the evil wizard, his name was Rigirus, was on the point of giving up in defeat and resigning himself to a mateless existence when he came up with a strange idea--a brilliant idea, actually. He would send his rat out to spy for him. He’d been looking for an excuse to get the rat out of his hair anyway, and this would do quite nicely. As a spy, the rat could go all sorts of places he couldn’t and find out just what the young ladies thought of him. Which ones liked him and why, and why they insisted upon hiding it from him. That sort of thing.
And, he rather suspected the rat in his hair wasn’t helping him any with the damsels. This caused him no end of worry. Did he dare do without his trademark? Should he lose the rat altogether? Or would that reduce his visibility so that he was only a commonplace wizard? Why is life so complicated, he would whine to himself. If only he’d adopted another trademark. But then he’d think about it and realize he couldn’t think of anything better. Oh, well, he thought, if I’m stuck with him I might as well put him to good use. Yes, a spy. Just the thing. Well once my mind is made up, it’s made up, he told himself. Which actually wasn’t true. He was a most indecisive wizard, in fact, and usually gave up on his projects much too early. But not this time. He really was very lonely.
So, he began looking through all his sorcery books, hunting for a recipe to turn a rat into a human and change him back again. He rummaged through book after book and scroll after scroll but could find nothing really right. There were recipes for turning all manner of animals into humans and humans into animals and back again. For example, fish into humans, and vice versa, and also snakes and lizards, turtles, birds, wolves (there were many of these), newts, salamanders, frogs, toads, peacocks, oysters, camels, elephants, horses, pigs, flies, mosquitoes, dragonflies, gnats, cats, and even bats, but nothing, absolutely nothing, about rats.
RATS! screamed the evil wizard inside his own head. Nothing about rats? How could this be? He had the most complete sorcerer’s library in the Seven Higher Kingdoms. He was absolutely sure of it. Except for the library of Sarnus, and there was no point in even thinking of that. It was totally inaccessible to him. So, in despair, he almost gave up. But he was lonely, and he did so want to get the black rat out of his red hair. Well then, he decided, I shall simply have to invent my own recipe. It can’t be all that difficult. I’ll just borrow a little from here and a little from there. A little of this recipe and a little of that. I’ll come up with it, he reassured himself. After all, am I not the greatest wizard of all?
So, in the summer, the evil wizard began to experiment. As the days turned and the crops and fruits grew and ripened, and while others enjoyed summer sun in the clear mornings, and shaded themselves under broad leafed trees by the water’s edge in the hot afternoon, he stayed in his tower all the day, shivering in the morning chill, and sweatily sweltering in the afternoon. Then the days shortened and cooled, the trees turned glorious yellow and red, and the air was crisp and delightful. But the evil wizard stuck his nose ever deeper in his musty books and scrolls, or held that very same nose over foul, smoking, steaming cauldrons and pots, full of boiling bits and pieces of plants and animal remains. As it turned to winter, and others sought the warmth of fireside, cheerful company at dinner and warm covers at night, the evil wizard stayed alone in his bitterly cold tower, the stone, untapastried walls covered with frost, his breath steaming as much as his cauldrons, except when his nose and face became red and unbearably hot from being thrust close to the simmering brews as he watched over them, while his back and red hair turned as white with frost as the walls.
And nothing worked right. He turned his rat into, to name just a few, a shrew, a cat, a gnat, a mouse, a louse, a dog, a hog, a goose and even a moose. At last, on the coldest night of the year, as the wind howled and the full moon was completely shielded by thick, icy, black, billowing clouds, and the snow came down almost sideways, and a thin layer of ice covered the inside walls of his tower, and the snow blew into his room and swirled around in eddies and currents, at last, he’d had enough. He broke down and buried his face in his soot-blackened hands and began to sob.
I’m such a failure, he thought to himself. Nothing I do ever works. I only became a wizard because I’m no good at anything else. Why does everybody else have it so easy? Why not me? Stupid rat in my hair. Hair! What happens when my red hair starts to turn gray? Do I dye it or what? Do I dye the rat again? Stupid rat. Stupid recipes. Stupid women. Who do they think they are? Who are they to judge me? What have they ever done? Do they have any idea, any idea at all, just how hard it is to be a wizard?
By now, the evil wizard was becoming quite worked up and began to pound his hands on the table in front of him. Upon it stood many pots of potions and jars of spells, and as he pounded harder and harder, they began to jiggle and wiggle and bounce and jounce closer and closer to the edge of the table--and to the steaming cauldron that held his latest concoction.
In fact, the pounding became so loud it woke the evil black rat who’d been sleeping sound and snug in the evil wizard’s hair. There, he’d been well protected by the wizard’s thick red hair, from both the cold of the winter pouring through the open window and the hot blast of the fire by the table. Drowsily, he stirred and tried to reposition himself when the wizard, at last beside himself with rage, violently began tossing his head about. Suddenly, the rat found himself thrown down upon the table and into the path of the wizard’s pounding fists. Terrified, while still half asleep, he scurried about with the huge fists hammering about him. He darted about the table in a frantic panic and then, horror of horrors, he bumped into a few pots and jars and knocked some of them into the cauldron.
Catastrophe!
A terrible silence. The rat looked up and saw the horrible red eyes, the fiendish scowl, the bared teeth, the death-wishing stare of his master whose fists were suspended in mid-air. The rat cringed, paralyzed with fear, breathless and trembling.
Then the evil wizard exploded.
“You stupid rat! You dumb rat. You ruined my recipe! I hate you. I hate you. You ingrate rat.” And the wizard picked up the rat and flung him into the cauldron.
How many scientific discoveries and breakthroughs are the result of blind chance? Of happy fate? Of fortunate happenstance? The telephone, penicillin, the law of gravity. The evil wizard, of course, knew of none of these, but if he had, he would certainly have made the comparisons himself.
For there was a scream of fear and pain, and a full grown man leaped naked out of the cauldron and sprawled on the floor.
About Ronald Neal Green
Ronald Neal Green is a recent student of the psychological insights of fairy tales and a life long student of religion and mythic literature. His education includes theatre, broadcasting and a stint in paranormal studies in Europe. He blends all these elements into a tour de force in The Duty of Love, the first of the Abode of Love, trilogy. Writing in a style that is part C.S. Lewis, part J .R. R. Tolkien and part Stephen King his novel is rich in drama, laughter and tears. A book for the whole family, it features a break neck, page turning pace, a stunningly unique plot, and is a combination horror and spiritual thriller.
NEW! IS THIS BOOK "BETTER" than "OZ, NARNIA, TOLKIEN AND ALICE AND WONDERLAND?" (Scroll down the page to view new Video Preview of book!) 
Ronald Neal Green is a recent student of the psychological insights of fairy tales and a life long student of religion and mythic literature. His education includes theatre, broadcasting and a stint in paranormal studies in Europe. He blends all these elements into a tour de force in The Duty of Love, the first of the Abode of Love, trilogy. Writing in a style that is part C.S. Lewis, part J .R. R. Tolkien and part Stephen King his novel is rich in drama, laughter and tears. A book for the whole family, it features a break neck, page turning pace, a stunningly unique plot, and is a combination horror and spiritual thriller.