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Steven Weaver, an engineer by day, novelist by night, spends most of his waking hours writing. Shifting from design, protocols, and boring equipment procedures to exciting adventures and new experiences his imagination invents for his characters, all the while wishing it were he himself, lost on the journey between pages. Steven grew up living with his mother and sister through middle school and high school, separated from his three other siblings. They didn’t have a lot of money growing up and books were his only escape. This is the reason he focuses his fiction writing on children and young adult (YA) genres. If even just one child or teen experiencing loneliness can find escape in his stories, if you ask Steven, he’ll say he was successful. Steven has always had a passion for storytelling, but as with anything, school, work, and family took precedence over writing and his pen ran out of ink. That was until, 2011 when he decided to start writing again, completing his first novel. The Vault, A Journey of Discovery was the result, and in 2013 became available for the masses. He never planned to stop there. His second story, Neola, a young adult adventure novel is just one more in the many he plans to share. Steven incorporates his upbringing by a strong single mother, his engineering and scientific experience, and his passion for history into his character’s experiences with never before seen technologies and adventures.
Reviewed by Si Ning Yeoh for Readers' Favorite
I was quite impressed with Steven Weaver’s The Vault: A Journey of Discovery as I found it an unexpectedly well-written story with distinctive characters, realistic dialogue and a fairly solid plot. While the book is targeted to a younger audience and contains a lot of strong and positive themes about dealing with puberty, bullying, loneliness, and so on, I believe that it’d make an entertaining read for readers of all ages. Daniel makes for a strong, sensitive and multifaceted protagonist. While his actions and experiences are largely driven by his focus on cracking the mystery of the secret vault, his burgeoning romance with Emily, hostile dynamics with Reid and conflicted relationship with his busy father truly give him depth as a character. Carsten, in the meantime, cuts an incredibly tragic and noble figure. His character as a solitary, mysterious genius is perfectly crafted to rouse the reader’s curiosity and imagination. I truly wish that we could have learned more about him.
I also loved the feeling of suspense which gripped me throughout the book. Although readers can easily anticipate some of the answers to the mystery, many brilliantly tense action scenes are woven into the plot, especially in the Nazi Germany chapters. My only gripe about the novel is that while Weaver, for the most part, makes a praiseworthy and successful effort in walking the delicate balance between providing enough vivid descriptions to stimulate our interest while still leaving some detail to the imagination, sometimes his efforts fall short. Some of the setting descriptions feel excessively detailed, for example, while the conclusion of the novel feels somewhat sloppy and raises more questions than it answers. All in all, however, The Vault is a book with a lot of potential and is definitely worth a read.
