Here is the video we shot for my book! Check it out.
Title: One and One Is One Author: S.T. Byra Publisher: iUniverse ISBN: 978-1532063633 Pages: 342 Genre: Fiction Reviewed by: Jake Bishop
Pacific Book Review
Author S. T. Byra has performed a neat trick. She has found a way to write a modern novel that seems positively Victorian. One can’t get very far within this compelling tale without conjuring images of Charles Dickens’ Nicholas Nickleby, Oliver Twist, and David Copperfield. The Dickensian flavor is not a function of the environment or the times (which is mostly post World War II), but rather a result of the plot itself, which surrounds its young protagonist with a torrent of woe. And like the best of Dickens, Byra makes it impossible for readers not to empathize with her young hero who seems destined to suffer one abominable event after another.
Grady is a nine-year-old lad who lives on a military base in England with his father and mother. His father is not actually in the military, so Grady already has one strike against him with his schoolmates who see him and his family as civvies (civilians). One afternoon, visiting at a friend’s house, Grady witnesses his mate being physically abused by the boy’s alcoholic father. Then Grady himself is treated harshly and made to walk over two miles home in a raging storm that leaves him fighting for his life. When Grady’s parents rightly report the incident to base personnel, the offending boozer and his family are subsequently transferred. While that punishment was just, it leads to Grady’s schoolmates ostracizing him for being a tattletale. Soon shunning turns to mayhem as Grady is held down and tortured by a group of older, brutal schoolboys. His injuries are so extensive that he is rushed to the hospital where he comes within a hair’s breath of dying. Though the young brigands are captured and punished, as they should be, once again Grady suffers for it. He becomes a total pariah within his school. Without friendships, scarred physically and emotionally, Grady is forced to grow from a boy to an adolescent with only his loving parents and his own fortitude to support him. Just when one thinks that things can’t get any worse, Grady’s mom and dad are killed, orphaning him at age sixteen. He is then forced to forgo an early scholarship to Cambridge when he is shipped off to Chicago to live with his mother’s sister whom he has never met and who turns out to be the equal of any dastardly villain even Dickens could create.
Byra is both a skilled writer and an accomplished storyteller. Her characters are vividly portrayed and quickly understood as either friend or foe. While there is definitely a narrative track that runs throughout her novel, the author simultaneously develops a full-bodied character study of a young man who absolutely refuses to be stymied regardless of the harshness of life that seems to keep assailing him. It becomes virtually impossible not to empathize with the young man who suffers one indignity after another and yet is still able to keep moving forward. By tale’s end he reaches a new stepping off point in his life and readers yearn to know what’s next in this survivor’s trek. Fortunately, the author leads one to believe that there is indeed much more to come in subsequent volumes of Grady’s tale. This reviewer believes most will wait for those volumes with keen anticipation.
by S. T. Byra
iUniverse
book review by Joe Kilgore
"While the second MP took notes to go with the ID pictures, Horace sat in the aisle listening in growing horror to the list of atrocities Grady had endured."
This is a harrowing novel of a boy's journey from child to young man. It is filled with devastating setbacks that would stunt the growth of anyone's psyche. Yet it is also an exploration of the power of self-determination and the recuperative might of love and respect.
Set just after the Second World War, the novel focuses on Grady, a boy growing up on a military base in England. While his mother and father are kind, loving people, circumstances lead to their son being horribly abused and suffering extensive damage to his emotions as well as his body. These damages haunt him as he grows into his teens. Then he loses his mom and dad when they are killed in an automobile accident. Still a minor, Grady is forced to go to the United States to live with his aunt - a sister that his deceased mother loathed. In Chicago, he's subjected to abject cruelty but also finds love and support from individuals he's never even met. As he approaches his eighteenth birthday, it remains to be seen whether his fate will be most affected by evil or good.
The author of this tale is an exceptional storyteller who infuses Grady's chronicle with a compelling blend of helplessness and hopefulness. Her prose makes you feel what her protagonist is feeling in both the worst and best of times. She catches the intense character of the child and the young man with searing credibility. Additional players also seem like people you've known, both the good and the bad. This is a story that doesn't necessarily end with this book, and those who read it will likely eagerly await its sequel.
RECOMMENDED by the US Review
Copyright 2019 US Review of Books
Clarion Review GENERAL FICTION
One and One Is One
S. T. Byra
iUniverse (Jan 18, 2019)
Softcover $20.99 (342pp)
978-1-5320-6363-3
One and One Is One is an unsettling, deterministic story in which a boy suffers cruelty but displays resilience.
In S. T. Byra’s dark coming-of-age tale One and One Is One, a boy proves his talent for survival.
Eight-year-old Grady and his parents live on an army base in England. His childhood is marked by bullying and hazing from classmates who resent his perceived betrayal of one of their own. Grady endures brutality, but at his request, his parents keep their intervention to a minimum.
Grady proves to be a resourceful, preternatural child. He renounces God, and resolves to preserve himself. As his personal trials solidify his self-reliance, he comes to embody pioneering courage and a stiff upper lip. His character is unusual, if seldom defined by more than his circumstances.
In the second part of the book, Grady is sixteen. An accident leaves him orphaned. He’s sent to Chicago to live with his aunt, who is an abusive Christian fundamentalist. After less than an hour in her presence—a span that makes her character’s extreme reaction to him abrupt—Grady is removed, and soon placed with new foster parents, English expats Andy and Hilde Burghley. They’re thoughtful people whose struggle to earn Grady’s trust is poignant.
Scenes between the Burghleys and Grady are lighter in the story and take greater care with surrounding details, from Grady’s introduction to Chicago’s culinary highlights to the warmth of his new home. Just as Grady begins piecing together a future, though, he’s struck by a loss that echoes an earlier one; the uncanny parallel undermines his tentative healing.
Events are introduced at an uneven pace. The logistics of getting Grady from England to America slow the story; once he arrives, there’s little room for him to express his grief before new dilemmas unfold. In a whirlwind of traumas following traumas, characters become black-and-white figures, including Grady’s aunt, whose swift characterization through intense dialogue leaves no room to explore the origins of her fanaticism. Her religion and her view of Grady’s mother and Grady complicate, rather than enrich, the work. Grady’s development is oblique; though he starts to open up with the Burghleys, and to allow himself greater vulnerability, he ends in the same state of solitude in which he began.
Relentless surprises—from a hospital stay to a court appearance—keep the focus on the distressing forces that befall Grady. The prose emphasizes actions over atmosphere or character reflections. Dialogue that overexplains elements of the plot keeps emotions and reactions close to the surface. Grammatical errors detract from the otherwise sharp typography and polished design.
One and One Is One is an unsettling, deterministic story. As he faces the cruelty of others, Grady’s resilience is heartbreaking.
KAREN RIGBY (June 5, 2019)
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The author of this book provided free copies of the book and paid a small fee to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. Foreword Reviews and Clarion Reviews make no guarantee that the author will receive a positive review. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
Publisher: iUniverse Pages: 342 Price: (paperback) $20.99 ISBN: 9781532063633 Reviewed: June, 2019 Author Website: Visit »
When a boy is traumatized by the cruel actions of his best friend’s father, it triggers a chain of events that forever underscore his life in S.T. Byra’s novel, One and One Is One: The Beginning.
Grady Pearson, 8, is the child of an American mother and English father who is a civilian engineer working and living on a RAF base. Grady’s dual citizenship and status as the only civilian in a base school make him something of an outsider, but he’s, nonetheless, a happy, adventurous child.
Then, when Grady and his friend Nigel knock over a vase in Nigel’s home, Nigel’s father, a colonel, becomes enraged and sends Grady out into the cold, wet night. By the time Grady walks two miles to his home, he’s hypothermic. The colonel is reported for his abusive behavior and is transferred to another air base, causing Grady to be ostracized and bullied by his classmates. In time, he finds ways to protect himself.
But at 16, tragedy strikes again, and Grady, who has a full scholarship to Cambridge University, is forced to leave the U.K. for the U.S. to live with a fundamentalist Christian aunt who is vindictive and selfish. The hard times in Grady’s short life leave him angry and distrustful, threatening to destroy a promising future.
The novel’s early chapters offer an intriguing read about a smart young man using his wits to transcend unpleasant circumstances. But as it unfolds, the plot relies on stereotypical characters, clichés and contrivances. His aunt (who frequently hisses or sniffs) is pure villain. And despite Grady’s troubles, it seems questionable the government would send him out of the country to an aunt he’s never met, although he’s nearly 17 with his university education assured.
In sum, while the story may appeal to fans of tales about good vs. evil, more of the smart thinking that informed the story early on would greatly improve its latter half.
Also available as an ebook.
Young Adult Suffers Abuse, Learns to Heal in Powerful New Novel
Author S.T. Byra’s “One and One is One” depicts the traumas one boy experiences and how he learns to trust again despite his past experiences
QUITMAN, Miss. (PRWEB) June 24, 2019 -- Every 10 seconds, a report is made to Child Protective Services regarding a child who’s been abused. Author S.T. Byra’s new book, “One and One is One: The Beginning”; details the story of a young adult who suffers abuse and how it changes his life completely.
Grady Pearson is an outsider, but still has a good life with his parents, until bullying and abuse almost kills him, and his parents are violently and suddenly taken away. He must then travel halfway across the globe to a relative he’s never known, who further abuses him out of hatred for his mother.
Finally located in a foster home, he slowly begins to learn to trust again, though it’s hard for him as the traumas he suffered never really go away. Yet he perseveres, surviving in an indifferent world, until he’s finally ready to go forth into his chosen life and be the man he’s meant to be.
“The sad part about Grady’s story is that people go through this in real life,” Byra said. “I want them to know that they will survive. Through time and life lessons, they can learn to trust and love fully once more.”
One Amazon reviewer gives praise to “One and One is One”: “I'm hopeful that the story of Grady continues soon. A wonderful tale of coming to age through trials of adversity and trauma.”
Readers are sure to be touched by Grady’s struggle and resonate with his story of overcoming his great trauma to become whole once more.
“One and One is One: The Beginning” By S. T. Byra
ISBN: 9781532063633 (softcover); 9781532063626 (electronic)
Available at iUniverse and Amazon
About the author
S. T. Byra is a retired Public Library System Director, a constant reader, and an avid knitter and crafter. Byra is an experienced fiction writer who has brilliantly captured the power of love, the power of trust and the strength it requires to trust again after abuse in her new novel, “One and One is One”. She has always had creative ideas in her head, and now, she writes them down
Copyright © 2023 S.T. Byra author - All Rights Reserved.
Powered by GoDaddy