Towers of Light series

Title: Towers of Light series
Author: Allen Brokken
Major Themes: Allegories, Fantasy
Synopsis: Three children must join their parents in fighting darkness, and when their parents are held captive they must find them and set them free.

For several years, I have been reading glowing reviews of the Towers of Light series. I never read any of them, though, until a year ago. We were given a copy of the first book in the series for review, and two of my sons fell in love with it, so we bought the rest of the books. They read them, but I didn’t get to them until now. Books like this are not my favorite, but even so, I enjoyed them and had a hard time putting them down. Now, I’m rather glad that I waited to read the series until it was complete! 

Light of Mine, book 1: See my detailed review here. Lauren, Aidan, and Ethan live a peaceful, happy life on their frontier farm with their parents. Then, Father builds a tower and tells them it is a Lighthouse—but they are far from the sea! He lights a lantern in it and tells the children they must keep it shining. The next thing the children know, Father has had to leave to help fight the Darkness that is taking over the land of Zoura, and then Mother disappears, too. The three children have to keep the light shining, which gets hard when their Pastor disappears and is replaced by a Bishop who teaches the opposite of what the kindly Pastor taught.

Still Small Voice, book 2: The battle is not over; Darkness is continuing to spread. To combat it, Mother has asked the children, in a vision, to light another tower in Blooming Glen—but their Uncle has a different set of instructions. How can they honor their Uncle, who doesn’t trust either the Knight Protector who was planning to help them follow their mother’s instructions, or the Mighty Mercenaries their father is a part of, while still listening to the still small voice and going to Blooming Glen?

Fear No Evil, book 3: The three children are still traveling, trying to reach Blooming Glen. One thing after another happens to stop them, as those who serve the Darkness will stop at nothing to prevent the Light from shining. An attack ends with the three children being separated from each other and from the Knight Protector, as well as their Uncle. How could they find each other? Would they even survive, with enemies all around?

Armor of God, book 4: The Dark One is now doing his best to conquer the heathlands and take over the entire country. The children must get to Blooming Glen as soon as possible to light the tower and save Zoura! However, the Armor of God has been lost and their father has been corrupted by Darkness. Can they find the armor before it is corrupted?

Wellspring of Life, book 5: Father has been badly burned, and his only hope for life appears to be reaching the Wellspring of Life. But, where is it? Is there any hope of getting him to it before it’s too late, with the Darkness spreading so fast over the land, and so many wild animals being corrupted by the Darkness and attacking the family? When even friends turn against them, all seems to be lost.

Demolishing the Stronghold, book 6: Blooming Glen is finally within sight! However, when the children, their mother, and two of their other guardians enter the city, they discover that the tower they were supposed to light has been toppled. Not only that, the evil Bishop who has been trying to destroy the Light since the very beginning has released a new and even more terrible creature against them—the Calamitous Drake. The children decide they must take to the air to fight this new evil and wipe out the Darkness permanently—but can they do it before all the Light Bearers are wiped out?

Allan Brokken is clever at writing fantasy/allegory. He has made evil appear very evil, and good very good. I like the stark contrast between Darkness and Light, although at times, as it is in real life, it can be hard for a little while to tell on which side a person or animal is. Eventually, as in real life, their true colors show through. 

In all the books, there are battles. The children must use their weapons of Light to fight people and animals who have become servants of Darkness, and sometimes there is blood shed. Animals who have been corrupted by Darkness turn on the people they are usually friendly with. Sword- and spear-fights are common. Because of the levels of violence and tension, I would not recommend this book for children under 10. On the other hand, this series is great for children who love action. This series contains non-stop action! No sooner do the children in the story repel one attack, another begins and they must find a way to counter it. Once a child has begun reading the Towers of Light series, they won’t want to stop. 

Something that my boys did not pick up on until I pointed it out was that two of the names/terms used in the story, which were hard to read, were actually words written backward. When we knew the original word, the story was more meaningful. I won’t mention what the terms were here, to avoid spoilers, but parents may want to find them and explain them.

One issue I had with the entire series was the lack of proofreading. There were many typos and grammatical errors that jerked me out of the story—often several on a page. That made it harder to read. If that were corrected, the books would be much better. 

I received complimentary copies of the first and last books from the author, and these are my honest thoughts about them. I purchased books 2-5, and these are my honest thoughts about them, too!

WARNING: Animals are corrupted by the Darkness, and then killed by the Light. An animal injures a humanoid. There are attacks by various animals, corrupted people trying to kill the children, and weird creatures that cause injury. The violence gets stronger in the last two books, as the people who work for the evil Bishop and his minion Refi’Cul injure and try to destroy the Light Bearers. 

Links to buy these books:

This review was written for the entire set of books. You can buy the individual books here:

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