Scared: A Novel on the Edge of the World

Nonfiction author Davis (Fields of the Fatherless) makes his fiction debut with a story about two people worlds apart who help each other find redemption. An orphan girl in Swaziland faces abuse by her uncle but endures through visions of ""the illuminated man"" who she believes will take her to her dead mother's side. When photographer Stuart Daniels discovers the girl near death, he enlists a pastor and a village chief to help her and her two siblings. Facing floods, confronting fraud by an aid agency, and absorbing a brutal attack by one of many desperate starving people may be the only path toward atonement for Stuart's past life. Davis shows insight into African cultures and his writing is vivid, but the novel is weakened by shifts in tense and point of view and lack of patience for character transformation. The novel is the first of three; the series could become popular if the quality of the writing can improve to do justice to the passion with which the author champions his cause.