Tag Archives: The Whirlwind in the Thorn Tree

Fan Mail for Hunt

Author S.A. Hunt posted this fan letter on his Google+ feed (now defunct) yesterday. It’s a nice Found Reader story.

I don’t mean to hit you in the feels, but I have to share this with you and the community. My brother hates books, hates reading. He’s always had trouble with it, and he always felt like books were a world (really many worlds) he was locked outside of. In the last year he finally got new glasses and reading became a lot easier, he came to me and asked if I had anything lying around the house that he might be interested in reading. I handed him The Whirlwind in the Thorn Tree and gave him an adapted Princess Bride speech: “swords, guns, torture, revenge, giant robot things, mad men with masks, chases, escapes, true love, miracles: you want it, this book has it.”

I kinda backed away slowly, hoping for the best, but Devin hasn’t read a book since high school. Over the next couple of weeks I started getting way more texts than usual: “I just got to the ocean monster,” “text me the name of that town they visit, I wanna name my city after it in Risk Legacy,” “I feel like the world is conspiring against me to finish the last few pages of this book. Every time I have a moment something has to happen! WTF!” I realized that he was going to need the second book before I’d find time to finish it, so I primed it right to his house. He texts me the next day “Yeah that first book cliff hangs hard! Glad I can just pick up the next one, thanks sis.”

He wanted to write you a thank you letter, but he’s less confident with writing than he is with reading, so I got drafted.

TLDR: My brother hasn’t willingly opened a book in his whole 30 years, and your book, your writing just opened a thousand doors. He took WitTT with him EVERYWHERE until he finished it, and now he won’t shut up about it. He beat that book up so hard that he told me he “owes me a new, nice copy.”