The Book of Daniel is an immersive story of the life of a unique child with extraordinary abilities that will take him years to understand. Follow Daniel on a heartwarming journey across America. Fall in love, feel your breath stop and hop onto the rollercoaster of a life that may be more like your own than you know.“The Book of Daniel is a unique coming-of-age story that’s steeped in the paranormal,”– Michelle Sharp“… a surrealistic novel filled with twists and turns, making for compulsive reading,”– BlueInk

Sean Michael Ian is an American artist-writer. He was born in Oceanside, New York, and raised in Baldwin, New York, to Flora Lilly Iannarone & Michael Gerard Iannarone. His mother is an artist & florist. His father is an educator. He is of Italian & German ancestry. Sean attended CW Post LIU, Brentwood. While at CW Post, he studied fine arts & photography.

Customer Reviews

4.5

2 reviews

MICHELE SHARPE

Sean Ian’s imaginative novel The Book of Daniel incorporates Gothic horror and the paranormal into an old soul’s coming-of-age story. A New York delivery room fills with blood. Along with Barbera, who’s in labor, three doctors and a nurse are present; The blood rises above their ankles. Barbera’s baby, Daniel, fights to stay inside her body. Conscious and telepathic even in the womb, he is aware of Barbera’s post-birth suffering. In the NICU, his mind rages at their separation. On the seventh day after his birth, the two are reunited; they rest. It’s the first stage of Daniel’s journey to become who he is meant to be. Supernatural images flow throughout the book. Some, as with the delivery-room flood, are gory and shocking. Other images are gentler yet still depict destruction. After Daniel crashes the Beast, an animated, love-struck truck, “a pool of sorrow laced with oil” surrounds it, and a single spark, fluttering “like a butterfly,” lands, setting off the truck’s immolation. Figurative language leads to original flourishes elsewhere, as when Daniel’s landlady is described as “all seven dwarves rolled up into a tight little slightly rounded dress.” The plot includes four conflicts: how Daniel feels about his supernatural powers, how he will individuate from his mother, whom he will love, and how he will find his father. Indeed, the subplot regarding Daniel’s use of his telepathic powers to search for his father, who left town the day after impregnating his mother, is haunting. The man is depicted as a ghost who hovers roadside as Daniel makes the archetypal journey toward realizing his true self. Daniel’s supernatural abilities are also centered, though he suppresses them to fit in with other grade-school children. But in middle school, when he witnesses his best friend and future love Lilith being assaulted by her father, his infant rage returns, and Lilith’s father falls down dead. Daniel denies his responsibility for the death, but when another death follows from his rage, he must find a way to understand his power. However, the book’s transitions between scenes are sometimes abrupt, and some dialogue tags are missing or jumbled. Further, a midpoint shift from an omniscient narration to Daniel’s perspective—lasting for one vague, mystical chapter—is jarring. And scenes on a southwestern reservation, where tribal members share knowledge with Daniel, read as far less authentic than others in the book. The book regains its footing once Daniel inhabits Lilith, who is struggling in New York. Using time travel, telepathy, and strong statements of emotion, The Book of Daniel follows a boy’s heroic journey to claim his true identity and reconcile with his parents
Blue ink review

In The Book of Daniel, author Sean Ian explores the conundrum of whether supernatural Powers are a blessing or a curse. After a fateful one-night stand, Barbera finds that her charming biker lover has left a souvenir of his visit. To say that Barbera’s pregnancy is unusual is an understatement. Almost from the beginning, Barbera can communicate telepathically with the fetus who will be her son, Daniel. Then comes the bizarre birth, in which copious amounts of blood fountain from her body until the operating room is ankle deep in blood. Somehow Daniel is born, and Barbera recovers. As Daniel ages, readers learn he’s a telepath with other powers, as well: People who harm Daniel, or those close to him, simply die. In school, he’s a pariah, except for his friendship with beautiful Lilith: Daniel and Lilith are inseparable until Lilith’s father tries to rape her and ends up dead in her bed. Following the suspicious death, Barbera and Daniel head across the country for a new start. Yet Daniel pines for Lilith and doesn’t fit in at his new school. After three school’s bullies learn too late that picking on Daniel isn’t a good idea, Daniel heads off alone, meeting other nefarious characters while those who care for Daniel find that loving him is as dangerous as trying to harm him. Early on, it’s difficult to discern which parts of the narrative are reality and which exist in Daniel or Barbera’s dream worlds or Lilith’s imagination. But this straightens out as soon as Daniel sets out on his own and it becomes clear that all the supernatural powers lie with him. The result is a surrealistic novel filled with twists and turns, making for compulsive reading. While some of the supernatural events, such as the sanguinary birth of Daniel, seem to lack purpose, Ian’s descriptive prose keeps the pages turning. After a confusing beginning, readers will find themselves absorbed in this thought-provoking tale. Also available in hardcover and ebook.