The Narrow Road – A Book Review

I received this novel as a prize for helping fund a kickstarter campaign. Erik Yeager, author, producer and filmmaker is the author of The Narrow Road and David Delagardelle is the illustrator. The Narrow Road is an imaginative retelling of John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress. To be onest, I have yet to read Pilgrim’s Progress so I don’t know how close or how far away the stry line veers from it, but as a standalone story on its own merits, it’s a great story.
This allegorical story relates the physcial and spiritual journey of a man named Christian. Christian works as a tracker for the demons who usually feast on other humans who resist them, called the Evangelists. It is Christian’s job to hunt them down and let his masters know where they are. The gain power when they feed on humans. In reward for his loyalty they and their Demon lord Apollyon, don’t harm him – or his family. However, this seemingly ideal and mutual arrangement changes when he takes on a young man named Faithful under his wing as a young tracker.
Christian goes through an emtional and spiritual journey as he comes to the realization of what he was previously fighting for and the true price of his relative security. That security was at great cost; one that he could not clearly see until his younger companion helps him break out of his mold of thinking. Faithful’s questioning of how things are, his innocence and even rashness at first worries and irritates Christian but the young man eventually helps Christian on to the road to the Light. Christian must decide if the price he pays to keep his family safe from his masters is worth what it is doing to his soul. his family’s lives lie in the balance and he has to make a decision which will have serious consequences.
I enjoyed this book. It is a short novel, very symbolic in its story telling style, fast paced with plenty of action and some beautiful black and white illustrations from David Delagardelle. The thing is, this was originally supposed to be turned into an indie film and plans to make this story a film are still in the works. So, what did I get with the kickstarter deal? A beautiful hard cover, an epub and pdf copy for my kindle. It also came with a CD with a beautiful piece of music and still photography and a few behind the scenes shots of the short film of the same title and a trailer. Below is a test screen of the film. From me The Narrow Road gets a thumbs up. To find out more about the production of the film please go to the website: thenarrowroadmovie.com. The book is available for purchase at Lulu.com.

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victorialadybug (V. A. Jeffrey) is a fantasy and science fiction author. She also loves music, art, history, cooking, baking, fermenting stuff, comic book movies and nearly anything Tolkien related. Her biggest writing inspirations are Shakespeare, Frank Herbert and, of course, J.R.R. Tolkien. You can find her at: mymiddleearth.com.