Destiny's End

By Cal Muzikar

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0976507609
• ISBN13: 9780976507604
• Release Date: January 2005
• Publisher: Cal Muzikar
• Length: 413 Pages
• Weight: 1.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 1.3" x 6.3"

Customer Reviews

An Easy Read

I found this book very enjoyable and easy to read. The characters and their situations are very believable. The way the author tied events and locations together that are familiar to me made the story even more interesting. Jake's words of wisdom relating to our influence on the youth of today were of interest to me as well.

A New Life

For all of us babyboomers who married too young and tried to stick with it. This is our story. Jake is a man with values,he tries to stick it out with Sandy who he no longer has anything in common with. When Jake meets Ellen everything goes into a tailspin. This book comes close to home for so many of us. I loved this book!

Well told story!

Destiny's End is comfortable to read. Some passages are captivating; hard to put down. The author does a particularly good job of sensitively showing the pain in Jake's family's evolution and discovery of the end of the relationship. He captured Sandy's viewpoint convincingly. As a reader, it is easy to sympathize with Ellen's situation and admire her self transformation. It is equally easy to despise Guy. His villainous side is well developed, despite Jake's understanding of his plight. It is masterful to disclose at the end the betrayal of Ellen by her friend, without belaboring the meaning of the betrayal. To the reader it is a subliminal confirmation of what you have come to believe about Guy and Ellen and even Jake. Jake has the most complex situation to manage as a writer and to resolve as a reader... I'm left unsettled, undecided. On one hand I have hope for him and his future, especially as it has to do with Ellen, who represents innocence. On the other hand there is an unresolved issue of the discrepancy between his heroic portrait and the dark side manifested in the deception. The argument for Jake's acquittal in the mind of the reader seems left as fate or "destiny".

Love in a Time of Reality

Destiny's End is a story that will appeal to the masses because it is a display of the attainable. You will find within its pages characters that are endearing but not perfect, strong but not invincible, and loving but not immune to the traumas that affect our everyday lives. This book is not about beautiful, glamorous soap opera characters with rock solid footing and bottomless bank accounts , but individuals and families trying to make financial, spiritual and emotional ends meet. They fight, they cry, they obsess, and they make mistakes. The love story does not immediately conquer all with no regard for its environment, but builds and climaxes in the midst of troubled teens, unsatisfied mates, and new careers. We learn of missed chances, time wasted, trouble brewing. Still, while the design of the tale may be tumultuous, its fabric, we learn, is one of hope. The reader will recognize throughout this book's pages a drive for fulfillment, passion, and love. Perhaps the most touching personal journey of the book is the transformation of Ellen, the female protagonist. Fighting against twenty years of inertia within a lifeless, suffocating marriage, this woman's sense of self worth reaches heights the reader might not have imagined possible. The beauty in her journey is that her newfound love for Jake is, all in all, a vehicle for discovering her true capabilities as a career woman, a mother, and a lover. The relationship motivates her, and readers will enjoy her romantic connection, but in truth it is Ellen alone who creates her own destiny. Unlike Ellen, Jake does not suffer from suffocation. In fact, he has created a life within middle-class, suburban living that defies the conventional framework, and he is both aware and proud of it. Through the development of his partnership with Ellen, Jake questions both what he is doing and the implications his actions hold for his present and future existence. Readers will anguish along with him as he struggles to make decisions that affect not only him, but a family he has spent twenty years building. What does commitment mean in the face of love? Destiny's End is sure to entice the baby boomer generation, as the author intends. The story forces us all to think outside the confines of what seems possible, and ultimately encourages the reader to pursue what it is we truly, at any age, want our destiny to be.

A love story with substance!

In his first novel, Cal Muzikar has written a poignant and powerful tale of dashed expectations and the redemptive power of love. Jake Carr and Ellen Eastman are souls adrift, each trapped by choices made earlier in life, choices which seemed promising at the time but which the years had revealed to be barren and debilitating. This is the story of their chance encounter, and the journey each must undergo both alone and together to begin life anew. The author candidly aims his story at the baby-boomer generation, to which the reviewer must confess to belonging also. From that perspective, it is my opinion that very few individuals of my generation will fail to find something to relate to in Cal's novel. The loveless marriage, the controlling husband, the sacrificing of family to the demands of the workplace, the perplexity of dealing with adolescents, and yes, also the freedom of the open road, the healing powers of nature, the joy a soulmate can bring, and the hope for a richer and more meaningful life. These themes and more weave their way in and around "Destiny's End," turning a deceptively simple love story into a complex portrait of a generation's hopes and fears, triumphs and tragedies. Of particualr note is the author's dedication of his work to "women in chains, wherever they may be." The portrait of Ellen confirms Cal's remarkable insight into the all too prevalent experience of women who find virtual enslavement in their marriages, whether the chains be psychological, financial, or physical abuse. There is a deep awareness on Cal's part that oppression may be subtle and well disguised while nonetheless leaving scars and victims in its wake. And the story of Ellen is the story of one woman's decision to break those chains, and create a meaningful, fulfilling life for herself. All in all, Mr. Muzikar's novel offers much for boomers of any age to ponder, while at the same time introducing characters this reader was happy to pull for!