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The Farmer's Son  by Lindelea 6 Review(s)
Eirinn LeighReviewed Chapter: 30 on 6/7/2016
Please say you are continuing this soon. I find myself as enamored of this history as I am already of your larger history (as told in Flames et co)

Author Reply: Belated thanks for stopping and leaving a word of encouragement. I am back to writing and working at finishing the WIPs one at a time. (A stay-at-home order is quite helpful, at that.) At the moment, it's Bill's story, but this one is high on the list.

I hope this finds you and yours well. (((hugs)))

NolemeReviewed Chapter: 30 on 5/5/2015
Loving this story. Is there a new chapter coming soon, perhaps? It ends in such a cliffhanger for the characters involved! I'm really curious what their reaction will be when Gandalf shows up at Crickhollow, and they notice he too is dismayed. Poor families. You capture the hobbits so well, and your Black Riders are just as terrifying as in the FotR book. I really shouldn't have read the parts about them in the night, lol. Spooky.

Author Reply: Belated thanks for the encouragement!

We've been dealing with illness at our house for more than a week now, but I'm hoping that things will get back to normal (or what passes for normal) soon. I hope to have a new chapter in this one before the end of the month.

Author Reply: Sigh. Life has a way of happening. I got pulled away from fanfic for a long time, but oddly enough, life kept happening and pulled me back to fanfic recently. In any event, thanks and apologies, and I am working on WIPs again. This one is high on the list.

I hope this finds you and yours well.

LarnerReviewed Chapter: 30 on 5/24/2014
The passing of the Black Riders across the Bridge must have felt as if winter were falling upon them ere it withdrew as suddenly as it came. How horrible it was for all those guarding the Bridge! And seeing Crickhollow turned upside-down like that must have terrified them all!

Author Reply: I'm sure it must have been terrifying. I think JRRT said you could feel them coming, in growing fear -- he said their greatest weapon was fear, if I'm remembering right.

EverlightReviewed Chapter: 30 on 5/23/2014
It's truly started now. Poor Saradoc! It must have been a terrible shock to see the damage done at Crickhollow and still not know just what happened to his only son. The guards words in the last paragraph just sent a chill right through me.

Author Reply: It must have been awful -- not knowing is awful. There was a little boy in the news here a few years back, who disappeared from his school. His parents kept the case before the public for months... but to this day, no one (except his abductor) knows what happened to him. How terrible, to know that something has happened, but not to know a loved one's fate.

DreamflowerReviewed Chapter: 30 on 5/23/2014
And so it begins! Oh my, poor Saradoc! And now Paladin's going to be so confused.

Author Reply: So it begins, indeed. My goodness, I just realised I have three separate stories set in the Shire at the time of the Troubles. I guess it would have been too cumbersome to wrap them all in one package. Rose and Hally's story started as mere background for "Flames" and "Rescue" and "Pearl of Great Price" and "Small and Passing Thing" and grew into a tale of its own, and still growing! Whew.

And yet, I still haven't figured out how to reconcile this story with Rosemary's exile... or if the two must remain mutually exclusive. Still, it would be wise for Paladin to arrange to have spies outside of the Tookland, once he closes the borders. Ah well, that is some way off, yet. For Paladin, in this story, the Troubles are just beginning.

Garnet TookReviewed Chapter: 30 on 5/23/2014
And so the moment of truth has come.

At least they've figured out that it wasn't the Old Forest but they'll soon come to the conclusion that the lads are dead because they went into the forest. I just wanted to shout the clues to the situation that they don't have to put the whole puzzle together.

I'm assuming that a message will soon be on its way to Paladin about the supposed fate of his son and the invasion of Buckland. Not looking forward to what that message will do to him.

Author Reply: There are conflicting accounts in the original. One says that something came out of the Old Forest and carried them off (if I'm remembering right), and another says they went into the Old Forest and died there (though we know they didn't). You're right, it's not the Forest itself, as in the time when the Forest attacked the Hedge.

And apparently Freddy did not tell anyone that they went into the Old Forest willingly, on their way to Rivendell... So one of my stories, where I have him sweating under the questioning of Saradoc and Paladin about an apparent "prank", is off the mark, and I didn't realise it until I was working on just what the families left behind thought of the disappearance.

Poor Paladin, and poor Eglantine! When someone walks out the door, we just assume they'll be back as planned... I keep reminding myself not to take my loved ones for granted.

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