REVIEW + GIVEAWAY: Rarity from the Hollow by Robert Eggleton

*I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review and all opinions within this review are my own.*

Author proceeds go to a child abuse prevention program operated by Children’s Home Society of West Virginia.

Author: Robert Eggleton
Publisher: Dog Horn Publishing
Release Date: March 16, 

Lacy Dawn is a true daughter of Appalachia, and then some. She lives in a hollow with her worn-out mom, her Iraq War disabled dad, and her mutt Brownie, a dog who's very skilled at laying fiber optic cable. Lacy Dawn's android boyfriend, DotCom, has come to the hollow with a mission. His equipment includes infomercial videos of Earth's earliest proto-humans from millennia ago. DotCom has been sent by the Manager of the Mall on planet Shptiludrp: he must recruit Lacy Dawn to save the Universe in exchange for the designation of Earth as a planet which is eligible for continued existence within a universal economic structure that exploits underdeveloped planets for their mineral content. Lacy Dawn’s magic enables her to save the universe, Earth, and, most importantly, her own family.

Inside her first clubhouse, Lacy Dawn glanced over fifth grade spelling words for tomorrow’s quiz at school.  She already knew all the words in the textbook and most others in any human language.

 Nothing’s more important than an education.

 The clubhouse was a cardboard box in the front yard that her grandmother's new refrigerator had occupied until an hour before.  Her father brought it home for her to play in.

 The nicest thing he's ever done.

 Faith lay beside her with a hand over the words and split fingers to cheat as they were called off.  She lived in the next house up the hollow.  Every other Wednesday for the last two months, the supervised child psychologist came to their school, pulled her out of class, and evaluated suspected learning disabilities.  Lacy Dawn underlined a word with a fingernail. 

All she needs is a little motivation. 

I was really excited when Robert Eggleton, the author of "Rarity from the Hollow", emailed me asking for a review of Rarity from the Hollow. For one thing I love books that are centered in my home state and another thing is I love helping out fellow Mountaineers. I became even more excited when I continued reading the email and found out that Mr. Eggleton donates his author proceeds to a child abuse prevention program operated by Children’s Home Society of West Virginia in his home state. Further into the review I will place a link to the CHSofWV webpage so you can see for yourself the things the program is doing to help the youth of WV. 

Lacy Dawn is an extremely smart eleven year old girl who is living an extremely hard life. She has to deal with poverty, abusive and neglectful parents. Her father, who is a Gulf War vet and is suffering from PTSD, constantly beats Lacy Dawn and her mother Jenny. Jenny is under-educated, there in physical form but is mentally absent when it comes to parenting and has lost her teeth as a result of having Lacy Dawn and poverty. Lacy Dawn has been told by DotCom (Bucky), an android, that it is up to her to save the entire universe. With help from her friends and family will Lacy Dawn be able to find a way to save the universe?

Lacy Dawn is our heroin and at the beginning of the story only a mere eleven years old. She is wise beyond her years, because she has had education lessons from DotCom for years, and she uses that knowledge to help friends and family in her own way. For a kid, I think she handled the news of saving the universe very well, but I think in most situations kids do handle things better than we expect them to. I really liked Lacy Dawn's character. 

Jenny, Lacy Dawn mother, has been beaten down everyday since her husband and Lacy Dawn's father returned from the Gulf War. She never finished high school so she is studying to take her GED test but she has to hide to study and she has to keep her study book hidden so Dwayne never finds it. Jenny also longs to get her drivers license one day. At times in the beginning I felt like Jenny was more content living in her past than trying to change her current situation. 

Dwayne, Lacy Dawn's father, is suffering severely from PTSD and the VA has been unable to help him overcome it. Along with drinking and smoking weed on a daily basis he also beats the crap out of Lacy Dawn and Jenny using a switch. A good bit of this book I hated Dwayne's character and wanted nothing more than to knock the crap out of him. 

DotCom, aka Bucky, plays a huge part throughout the entire story. He starts off as an android sent to Earth over 2000 years ago to enlist Lacy Dawn's help to save the universe. He is completely oblivious to the fact that Lacy Dawn has declared him to be her boyfriend and it almost seems like he really doesn't know what that means. About halfway through the book he hits puberty and finally starts to notice Lacy Dawn. I got really aggravated with the fact that he was constantly telling her that it was her job to save the universe but expected an eleven year old girl to figure out how.  

Tom is their neighbor who grows and supplies the entire hollow with weed and seems to have his hands into everything from pizza joints to portable potties. He seems like a nice enough guy but a little bit of a prev.

I absolutely loved Lacy Dawn's dog Brownie because of the brief glimpses into his thoughts in about the middle of the book. It was so funny and with that alone he became a favorite. I mean who wouldn't want to know what it is that their dog is thinking. 

Faith is Lacy Dawn's best friend, and a little bit into the story she is killed by her father. She then becomes a ghost that stays in the magical type forest that is near Lacy Dawn's house and inhabits different inanimate objects so she can talk to Lacy Dawn. Being Lacy Dawn's best friend she tries to give her advice when she needs it but sometimes she is a little annoying because it's very immature. 

Okay so now lets talk about the magical type of forest for a minuet. Lacy Dawn has the ability to talk to the trees and hold conversations with them. Apparently the trees will only talk to the kids who really need someone to talk to and with everything that Lacy Dawn has to endure that's just what she needs. 

"Rarity from the Hollow" is purely a work of fiction but there is a deeper message embedded within the pages. Robert Eggleton touches on the sick but all to true issues of child abuse, child molestation, domestic violence, alcoholism, drug use and poverty that are plaguing not only the beautiful state of West Virginia but every corner of the world. If you take away the sci-fi and fantasy aspect of this story this very well could be some child's life.

I really enjoyed "Rarity from the Hollow". Robert Eggleton has woven a story packed full of adventure, desperation, pain, heartache,  romance, and humor. While this may be a book that might not be everyone's cup of tea I definitely think that everyone should give this book a try. Although, I do feel that this is a book not recommended for children because of the issues and certain events that are described within the book.  

Robert Eggleton was born in 1951 to impoverished West Virginian parents. His mother was a victim of domestic violence and his father was alcoholic, traumatized by WWII before PTSD was treatable. He grew up fast by supporting his family with odd jobs until his first real job at age 12 in a pharmacy. In the '70s, the Vietnam War Protests drew him into a counter culture that would have prevented him from attending WV State College, had it not been for the military draft that targeted low-income and minority youth. Instead, he graduated with a degree in Social Work in 1973 and a Masters in 1977. For the next thirty-five years, he has been employed as an advocate for veterans, homeless youth, institutionalized juveniles, the unemployed, and, especially for abused/neglected children. He was the primary author of hundreds of investigative reports published by the WV Supreme Court from 1985 to 1997. He created models of children's social services accepted and distributed by the U.S. Department of Justice, the Child Welfare League of America, the National Association of Social Workers, and private nonprofit agencies. In 2006, Mr. Eggleton turned to fiction, in part, as a means of raising funds to prevent child abuse. His first novel was preceded by three satirical fantasies published in magazines. Lacy Dawn, the protagonist of his adventures, is Mr. Eggleton's real life heroine.


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Children's Home Society Of West Virginia is a private, non-profit child welfare agency caring for more than 13,000 children, youth, and families throughout the state of West Virginia each year.  Proceeds from "Rarity from the Hollow" have been donated to:

• Adoption, including pregnancy counseling and assistance with legal services;  
• Birth to Three, which assists families care for children who exhibit developmental delays and strengthens the families’ abilities to care for their children at home;
• Comprehensive Assessment and Planning for children and families involved with child protective services to ensure the appropriateness of services and safety of the children;
• Child Advocacy Centers within which children suspected of having been maltreated can be interviewed in a supportive environment by all involved parties (police, social workers, medical staff, defense, etc.), including video recordings, so as to prevent the children from further trauma by exposure adversarial courtroom proceedings;
• Parenting Education for parents involved in divorce proceedings;
• In-Home Child and Family Services to keep families intact when there is no imminent danger to the child but supportive services, such as case management or transportation is needed;
• Exceptional Youth Emergency shelters serving youth with disabilities;
• Foster Care in private family homes that sometimes adopt the children initially placed there if freed for adoption through legal proceedings;
• One mid-town youth center that focuses on after-school and summer academics, delinquency prevention, and parental development;
• Right from the Start which targets high risk birth mothers and high risk infants to ensure that proper medical, economic, and social service needs are met;
• Emergency Shelters (9) for youth in crisis (this was where Robert worked as the Director of Shelter Care – He started 5 of these family-like settings but the network has since expanded);
• We Can, a program that recruits volunteers to augment services provided by child protective services workers;
• And, a Youth Services program in an under-served part of WV that turns around mostly younger teens who are heading in the wrong direction.

Purchasing Links :

Amazon

Dog Horn Publishing

Inpress Books

Lulu

Barnes & Noble

Mediander

Dog Horn Publishing is giving away (2) Print Copies of Rarity from the Hollow by: Robert Eggleton.

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*I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review and all opinions within this review are my own.*

Author proceeds go to a child abuse prevention program operated by Children’s Home Society of West Virginia.