Month: August 2014

A review from David Armand, author of Harlow: A Novel:

“Dayne Sherman’s new novel is a taut literary thriller told in the vein of Cormac McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men and Larry Brown’s Joe. Like all enduring literature, this book deals with the big issues: the Old Testament themes of justice, morality, revenge, fatherhood, and ultimately of how one finds hope and salvation in a fallen world. Zion is a book you will not want to put down, and it will make the ten years you’ve waited since Sherman’s first novel seem worth every second.”

In Zion, his second novel, Dayne Sherman has proven he is one of the best writers of Southern fiction today. From his knowledge of guns to carpentry to nature Sherman misses nothing in the world of Baxter, Louisiana, a town filled with a cast of characters I’ll long remember.  It’s good versus evil in an intense and riveting story where long withheld secrets tear at the very fabric of family ties. This is the story of Tom Hardin, a man with a conflicted heart whose lamentations strike the deepest veins of the heart.  It’s one of those rare tales that readers will continue to ponder long after the last page is turned.

–Bev Marshall, author of Hot Fudge Sundae Blues & Right as Rain

“Zion begins ballistic, turns tectonic and ends gothic. The people of this fraught Louisiana town suffer both the shifts of history and the tribulations of their pasts. In Sherman’s dark vision, wood kin burn and kin make hay, setting these troubled characters searching in a spiritual, and sometimes literal, wilderness to find and make right what they can. Get ready for a thrill ride that slams into modernity with Old Testament inevitability.”

–Tim Parrish, author of Fear and What Follows & The Jumper

Sherman’s first novel introduced us to an amazing talent with a unique voice. Sherman’s second novel, Zion, shows us that this voice has gotten stronger.

Tom Hardin is a man with a set of morals that are out of sync with the world changing around him. Fighting against big business, old money, and just plain evil, Tom is just trying to do what’s best for him and his family. From the beginning, the tension in the novel builds as we see Tom battle against those that threaten his way of life and his family. It is impossible not to empathize with Tom and to root for him as the situation goes from bad to worse. All the way to the last page, Zion is difficult to put down.

Sherman’s first novel, Welcome to the Fallen Paradise, is always one of the first novels I recommend to people when they ask for a good book. Now it’s going to be difficult to tell people which novel to read first. Really, you can’t go wrong with either choice.

–Jonathan Chandler, Atlanta, Georgia

A brand new review of Zion: A Novel.

Dr. James D. Kirylo writes, “After reading Dayne Sherman’s new novel, Zion, one word expresses my reaction: Wow! Sherman’s creative ability and uncanny imagination is brilliantly illuminated in this thriller that takes the reader on a wild journey of intrigue that takes place Southeast Louisiana and Mississippi. If one relishes in mystery and raw human emotion that intersects religion, love, criminality, and deception, this book is for you. Truly, Zion is a page-turner! I suspect this novel will be a hit on the big screen in the not-too-distant future. In the literary tradition of the great writers that hail from the South, like Walker Percy, William Faulkner, and others, Sherman must be added to that esteemed list.”

James Kirylo is the author of several books, most recently Paulo Freire: The Man from Recife. Thanks, Dr. Kirylo.

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