Charani's Gift was written by Robert Nolin and published by Blue Bin Press in 2022. You can purchase it on Amazon/Kindle and you can visit the author on Amazon.
The year is 1898 and Hamlin, Missouri is attracting folks from all over America. Curing the mind of all of its ills are drawing people like magnets to town and several private asylums have opened up to take on the opportunity and demand that mental illness offers. Two young doctors join forces to explore and to practice their professions of psychiatry in this new modern age of mental health, but they begin to question their own theories after attending a show that featured a young girl trance-speaker and her guardian, who acted as a controller of Clara during her "act". But they soon wonder: Was it an act? After the show is broken up by police, Clara is committed to an asylum, where she eventually escapes with the help of multiple personalities that seem to reside within her mind. These personalities fight for control of Clara and the young doctors, along with a group of suffragists and mediums work with Clara in order to cure her and to bring wholeness to her life. A plot is soon discovered where others are rounding up mediums and suffragists and committing them to asylums and all of this conflicts with the work being done to help Clara. The battle is on, and the young doctors are in the middle of it. This story is based on real events, where science and magic converge.
From the way the author uses narrative in the story, along with the polished and articulate prose, it was hard for me to imagine that I wasn't reading text from back in the late 1800s. It is also difficult to believe that this is a debut novel, but it is his first and I whole heartedly congratulate him on that triumphant accomplishment.
Charani's Gift would have easily hit and solidly maintained a five-star rating had the story gone more along the "magic" plot line rather than the "science" trajectory, but that is just this reviewer's opinion. The history and the science that is offered up in this tale will certainly give you a glimpse back into a time when the mind and man's bedside manner were not always understood. The mystery of the mind will stay with you throughout this tale of the wonder child.
I loved it!
I give Charani's Gift 4 out of 5 stars.