Author, D. M. Fife sent me a review copy of Light & Dark: The Awakening of the Mageknight.
Dany Firoth is an average thirteen-year-old who finds himself at the beginning of his eighth-grade year, struggling with some of the more common oncerns that plague a boy of his age: bullies, homework, and his mother. Sabrina Drake is the new girl. She is beautiful and spellbinding, but carries a fantastic secret.
Accepted into the White Rock Academy of Illumination, a school for young squires destined to become Knights of the LIght and battle the forces of the Dark with magical weapons called Bondeds, Danny joins his five closest friends in the training of their lives. Honed in the techniques of blade work by an Elvin sword master and educated by a colourful assortment of knightly instructors, Danny and his friends are placed on the path to becoming knighted members of the Light. However, the Dark may have other plans as they unveil a sinister plot in this fantastic tale of dragon-riding adventure, sword-wielding action, and coming of age drama.
Light & Dark: The Awakening of the Mageknight follows the eventful life of thirteen-year-old Danny Firoth and his friends as their world is turned upside-down by the sudden realization that creature of myth might not be so mythical after-all. After a slow start the book moves along at a nice clip. An interesting assortment of characters pepper the pages, some of them more sympathetic than others. I was particularly fond of Calador and Chris, but had little attachment to Doug or Matt. The perpetrator of the sinister plot isn’t too hard to guess, but neither is he/she so obvious as to make finishing the book obsolete. There is just enough misdirection to make you doubt yourself. The writing is generally crisp and easy to follow. My only complaint is Fife’s REPEATED use of the same phrases, most notably “for but a moment,” “did as bid,” and “kept his council.” There are a couple other ones that show up too often for the repetition to go unnoticed, but they weren’t as quite as frequent.
Be forewarned though, this is apparently the first in a series. Unless I know before starting that a book is part of a series I’m always a little disappointed to reach the end of it only to discover it isn’t actually the end of the story. The book is already 312 pages long, so I understand why it had to be broken up and though threads are left open for continuation it isn’t too much of a cliffhanger. I’d definitely be interested in seeing where Fife goes with it. I would consider this middle grade or lower young adult, but I enjoyed it all the same.
You have my many thanks Sadie. A very well written and intuitive review. I will take your critiques into the greatest of considerations. Daniel M. Fife
No problem Daniel. I really did enjoy it. I look forward to the continuation of the story.