Kristy Cambron excels
as a writer of historical fiction. In The
Illusionist’s Apprentice, she shows that she is equally adept at writing
suspense. Having combined these two genre, Cambron takes us into the mysterious
world of Wren Lockhart, a fictional vaudevillian illusionist who once assisted the
great Harry Houdini, and FBI agent, Elliot Matthews. The story is set in the mid-1920s
while the reader is also given peeks into Lockhart’s childhood of the early
1900s. While Wren created illusions on stage, the illusions that were created
in her childhood had the greatest impact on her life. Cambron shows us how
faith in the work of Christ over the grave and the power of forgiveness defeated
those childhood illusions, allowing Wren to walk, or fly, in freedom.
Fictional Wren,
like her true-life mentor, Harry Houdini, did not fall prey to the resurgence
in spiritualism of the post-war 1920s. Rather they made it their mission to debunk
spiritualists who set about taking advantage of the grief imposed on so many by
The Great War. Wren stressed that she performed illusions, not magic, and
expected that same honesty in her fellow showmen and women. While she demanded
that transparency, Wren kept her personal life and struggles hidden from view.
Elliot Matthews
came to Wren for assistance with a murder case involving a suspect from the
world of the vaudeville illusionists. His original intent was not to uncover
her personal secrets, but being drawn to her fed his desire to know the person
behind the stage persona, a desire to gain her trust, to be allowed in the back
stage of her life; desires that would eventually save her life and life of
someone very dear to her.
The hardest part of reading Cambron’s novels
is extricating oneself from them afterward. One doesn’t simply visit her
characters and settings, one lives with and in them. Come, be transported.
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