Title: The Whispering Fields
Author: Joseph Collins
Publisher: Foremost Press
ISBN: 978-0-9818418-4-7
Genre: Fiction / Fantasy / Epic
Presentation: Soft cover

The Whispering Fields is a work of fiction, a fantasy where dogs and other animals talk, sing etc. and as mentioned on the cover, we may think of it as an epic, since it is conceived and constructed on a grand scale and is quite poetic though written in prose (there are quite a few poems in between the prose).

Toby is a dog that is abandoned by its human master and after failing to find him, after waiting in vain for some time hoping against hope for his return, he starts a long journey of trying to fend for himself, makes a few good friends, loses two of them in rather strange circumstances and makes a determined enemy who wants to switch his spirit with Toby! Toby and his two other friends finally find the paradise (The Whispering Fields promised in the folklore) that they are searching for. The ending is not what the reader imagines it to be and even Toby and his friends did not realise that their search really ended till almost the end.

The style is reasonably good though not unput-downable and a few editorial slips caught my eye. But they are so few and so minor that the reading is unaffected. The narrative is rather too detailed at places and the poems did not strike much of a chord with me, mainly because poetry is not my cup of tea.

All in all, I found the book sufficiently interesting to keep going and would recommend the same for all animal lovers (especially dog lovers) and those who like fantasies that convey some good morals. The message of the book is valid for human beings too.