Feathered Quill Book Reviews

 #Bookreview of The Children of the Children

By: Robin McMillion

Publisher: Catchings Press Publishers

Publication Date: September 2, 2025

ISBN: 979-8992464405

Reviewed by: Lily Andrews

Review Date: August 4, 2025

The Children of the Children by Robin McMillion is a haunting and deeply layered religious-historical novel that follows the echoes of one young man’s desperate search for purpose, redemption, and belonging. It starts with a cliffhanger: he’s about to die as the lights of an oncoming truck are rushing toward him but at the last second, the truck swerves, and life, strangely, continues. Why?

At the heart of this story is Danny Calvert (who later goes by Jacob), a college dropout wandering through 1969 Austin, a period that adds rich historical and cultural texture to the story. He is on academic probation; he is failing classes and he's avoiding assignments like the history term paper. A heavy sense of guilt is building in him for dragging others down especially Joe Del, the scholarship athlete who dies by suicide in jail. When we meet him, he’s driving too fast down a twisting Texas road, haunted by threats and disappointment as well as a drug debt hanging over his head. He nearly dies in a car crash but somehow miraculously survives. The blinding lights coming at him, the weightlessness and the feeling that his soul was about to be ripped from his body have been written with such intense clarity that you will find yourself holding your breath for a full page.

And from there, things only grow more unsettling. That crash is the hinge of the book, the place where his life could go one of two ways. Unexpectedly, he ends up climbing into a van with strangers, people who speak in Bible verses and smile and who say things like "Jesus loves you" and actually, somehow, mean it. They call themselves "The Fishermen," and they don’t ask for much, not at first, just that you come with them and listen, maybe stay a while and perhaps give up your name and take another one. For Danny, this is a kind of a relief after so much chaos in his life. However, what he doesn't realize is that when you’re totally disoriented, when you’ve nearly died and can’t explain why you didn’t, even surrender can look a lot like salvation until one day, it isn’t.

As I picked up the book, I wasn’t exactly sure what I was getting into and to be fair, the opening pages felt almost too dramatic to me at first. It was as if I was watching some intense Cold War thriller unfold with this teenager trying to convince an embassy worker in Prague that he’s American even though he didn't have anything that would actually prove his claim. It was like a chill ran through the prose and suddenly I realized this story wasn’t going to be about governments, spies or even passports, but about something much more intimate and disturbing. At first, I wasn’t sure if I could follow Danny into that van, because I’ve read enough books about cults and communes to know where these stories usually go. But thanks to McMillion's brilliance, I quickly understood why Danny chose to stay, why he listened and why him as a lost boy would cling to a belief system that, while extreme, insular and sometimes frightening, also offered him the first true sense of belonging he had ever felt. One moment that really stayed with me was when he accepted his new name as well as the relief that washed over him. This was a moment that loudly reminded me that when someone finally says, “You’re loved,” and you’ve been aching for it your whole life, even the sharp edges of that love can feel like grace.

This book manages to say a lot without shouting, about the systems that fail us such as schools that care more about performance than people, governments at war with their own consciences and churches so tangled in power they forget about mercy. It never feels preachy, just deeply raw, like people telling you the truth, even when they’re not sure they believe it themselves. Although the story has a lot of characters, sometimes almost too many to keep straight, its emotional current will constantly pull you back. You may not remember every name, but you won't forget that ache of searching, the way belief can both anchor and drown, and how one man’s desperate need to be good can sometimes blind him to what goodness even is.

Quill says: If you’ve ever wrestled with belief in religion, in revolution, in your family or in yourself, this book will probably unsettle you and maybe comfort you at the same time. It asks some very real, very hard questions such as how far you would go to find meaning and what you would be willing to give up for emotional safety, as well as whether you would consider love as genuine even if it comes with conditions. The Children of the Children by Robin McMillion will stay with you like a hymn you heard as a child but didn’t understand until you were older and broken and finally quiet enough to listen. It is perfect for readers who love character-driven stories about identity, faith, and the quiet ways people lose and eventually find themselves.

For more information about The Children of the Children, please visit the author's website at: robinmcmillion.com