Official Review: The Bellringer by William Timothy Murray

[Seraphia Bunny Sparks]

Thank you for the engaging review! The blurb grabbed my attention and your review sealed the deal! I need this book! lol

[Paul78]

That indeed is a great review. I look at the book and it's approach is great from the sample I have gone through I have already seen a built up suspense through out the story.

[Emie Cuevas]

This book sounds like just the type of book I'd read. However, from the title, of both the book and the series, I would have given this one a wide berth. I think if the author wants a best seller on his hands he should reconsider them.

Thanks for the great review.

[Janetleighgreen]

Thank you for your review, the author should feel proud of the job they did on this book from your review. I love fantasies, so I'll be getting my copy soon. Sheila sounds amazing, I love strong women characters, especially in this genre. It's also nice to read a book where the chapters flow smoothly. Thanks again! Nice job on the review!

[abran]

Thanks for the very clear review. I especially appreciate your description of the book's pacing - crafted so as not to lose the viewer, and to keep them with suspense. I had a few questions though - how different were the point of views of each character, do they show that Robby is at all unreliable or are they just the natural differences of multiple narrators? Do you think most fantasy novels are still written with such two dimensional female characters, and if they were all held to a higher standard, would Sheila still be as impressive?

[MarisaRose]

It sounds like this is a really great book! From the writing to the storyline, there doesn’t seem like anything to dislike. Thanks for the review!

[Gbemisola]

This book is sounds similar to 'The Soveriegn of the Seven Isles' series by David A. Wells. I really enjoyed reading these and I believe I will enjoy reading The Bellringer and other books in it's series. Thanks for the great review!

[greenstripedgiraffe]

Intriguing! To compare this with LOTR, is rather high praise!

[Afuglsan]

I read the sample, and I absolutely love the book so far.

[jaliper]

Woah! Five books. Are they all finished? Because I dont want cliffhanger endings. But I wanna read this too! Im adding this in my list for 2018. Thanks for this!!!

[Azeline Arcenal]

This seems like a great book for me to read. I think I’ll add this to me reading list. Great job on the review!

[Denny Bong]

The Bellringer. No cliffhanger ending, you say of the book. We are allured and compelled by the well crafted review to know how it will end for all the characters by a yearning to read all the four books in the series Thanks for a great review.

[Ryquman]

I am all in for a good fantasy book, book I am more intrigued by a good story line and the bellringer seems simplistic, But.
I have learned the hard way never to judge a book by its cover/ title and a comparison to the lord of the rings means there is something in there worth reading, so I will give it a try

[Peterhchurch]

some mistake somewhere, the prolog i read has no relevance to these reviews, also part 1 is very difficult to read with no characters developed.

[tmazonga]

The Bellringer by William Timothy Murray

According to information on Amazon, The Bellringer is the first of five books in the series of an epic fantasy adventure titled The Year of the Red Door written by William Timothy Murray. The four others are The Nature of a Curse (Volume 2), A Distant Light (Volume 3), The Dreamwalker (Volume 4), and To Touch a Dream (Volume 5).


The author makes me wonder whether the choice of the colour “red” in the title of the series, was fortuitous or premeditated, for red is a colour that throws up a lot of connotations. It represents danger (street lights), blood that flows in times of conflict, and the fire that burns. Yet a closer look at the brief preface at the beginning of the books leaves one with the impression that there is a clear link between the colour red and the conflict observed between the author and his editors. That is because he lets it known that even publishing the book was in itself “an adventure with ups and downs” and “bumps and jostles” in which his “patient” editors and the often “cantankerous and difficult client” that he proved to be, had to put up with each other.


The connotative use of the colour red is further borne out in the conflict in which, Robby, a young and innocent rural child leaves his caring parents and embarks on a journey that at first looks benign but turns out to be a nightmare. While the lad is having a quiet and ordinary day at home with his dad and mum, or a stranger who turns out to be a relative turns up, asks him to do him a favour by delivering a parcel to a man named Ashlord at an address he knows from a distance, simply because he the person who brought the parcel is too busy doing other things. Yet, what initially looked like a harmless and benign mission thrust on the teenager by his cousin, the stranger Ullin, turns out to be a nightmare as he loses his way and is even attacked by a pack of wolves. To be honest, I suspect that Ullin knew what lay ahead for the poor lad and deliberately decided to let him be the one to carry the can. One cannot help wondering what the boy did to deserve such a Calvary.


Throughout the story, the author succeeds in keeping the reader in total suspense and expectation of what is to come next. Not for one moment have I been bored reading the pages. Yet, in all of that, he keeps his characters to a down-to-earth level, making them express themselves in the language of the ordinary rural and uneducated people they are. The story is a befitting snapshot that nostalgically recalls the long gone centuries of carts, horses, castles, the nobility and the commoners. So, it is not just literature, but also history.


I like the story as it reminds me of Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, Gulliver`s Travels by Jonathan Swift, and The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien. What I do not like about the free sample is that instead of taking the reader this far on such an exciting adventure and then abruptly dumping him to his/her own devices at the beginning of a chapter entitled “The Fortress”, the sample could have allowed one to read more about the escapade, even if it meant doing so in brief excerpts only. All told, this book would be useful for teachers and scholars who are interested in approaching history through the prism of literature.