Review of Lee Duigon’s Second Bell Mountain Book

The  Bell  Mountain  Saga  Continues:

 

The Quest  For  The  Secret  Scrolls

 

 

A Review of

 
Lee Duigon The Cellar Beneath The Cellar  (Vallecito, CA:  Storehouse Press, 2010)
                    287 pp   $   ISBN: 978-1-891375-55-2

 
Reviewer:  Forrest W. Schultz

 
     The quests of each of the first two books in Lee Duigon's children's fantasy series pertain to legacies of the renowned King Ozias which must be activated by two children, Jack and Ellayne.  Book One ends with the inaugation of a new age produced when Jack fulfills the first quest by ringing the Bell of Ozias on the summit of Bell Mountain.  The second quest is retrieving the secret scrolls of Ozias by descending deep underground into a secret cellar.

 
     The second book opens with a shocker.  The Temple official Martis, who was sent forth to assassinate the children now becomes their protector and guide in fulfilling the second quest.  This is the first of many plot twists, whose telling could be regarded as a narrative of surprising conversions.  The story is also filled with characters and creatures with strange roles.  Some of these existed in the first book, and some are new ones introduced in Book Two. 

 
    The narration provides insighful portrayals of the "heathen" tribes in the story which enables us to understand how they think, and to give us some idea of the enemy against which the children and the other heroes are fighting.  And the depiction of the decadence of the offical Temple religion, which was begun in Book One is continued here.  This official religion is analogous to Israel and the Church during their degenerate periods.

 
     There is no indication of how many more books will be forthcoming.  However many there are,, they will be welcomed if they are as good as the first two.