Map of the UK made from Indie Book covers, too cool!

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Rosen Trevithick, of Kindle Forum fame, has set herself the challenge of compiling a map of the UK made up entirely of Indie book covers. It’s a pretty nifty idea. Check it out here.  I was lucky enough to claim the Manchester area for The Weeping Empress, making me neighbours with the likes of Will Hadcroft, Geoff Woodland, David Elham and Katie W. Stewart. I couldn’t be in better company. Thank you Rosen for coming up with such a cool idea and seeing it through!

Review of D. M. Fife’s Light & Dark: The Awakening of the Mageknight

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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.

Book Review of Edwin Wolfe’s The Eyes of the Desert Sand

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Author Edwin Wolfe sent me an ARC of The Eyes of the Desert Sand (Chrysalis Chronicles #1).

Partial (because the whole thing is just too darned long) description from Goodreads:

How many parents would believe their thirteen year old son who told them that two vampires and a hooded stranger had tried to abduct him? Strange thing is, young Ethan Fox is convinced his parents, George and Betsy do believe him. Could it have something to do with the mysterious poem he wrote in his sleep? Or maybe it has something to do with his past, the past he cannot remember before his eighth birthday. Something strange is afoot, and it is about to turn Ethan’s world upside down.

Review:

If I’m honest, I didn’t particularly enjoy this book, but I’ve been sitting here trying to decide if what I disliked was really any fault of the book or just that I’m not ten years old and the intended audience. It is probably a little of both. Certainly, there were things I disliked. Haley’s character, especially, seemed only to exist in order to fill some cliche female role of adoring all things small and cute and nagging at the main character in an overly mother-like fashion. Both children, who find themselves in what should be a terrifying situation, accept their lot with such aplomb that it is completely unbelievable, and I found the constant references to the modern as distracting. It reminded me of an old childless uncle trying desperately to find a way to relate to and bond with his nieces or nephews…forced.

What bothered me the most, however, was that so very little happened. This book is 320 pages long. I honestly think there are 250 pages of descriptions and 70 pages of action or dialogue. Every character, mythical beast, room, food item, mode of transportation, item of clothing, etc, is described in excruciating detail. While this gives the reader a very clear idea of what things look like, it does little to move the plot along. In fact, it weighed it down painfully.

This is where the 10-year-old (or younger) comes in because, as an adult, I grew increasingly frustrated with the constant floridness that a child might not have. To a child, they may have been a source of constant joy and amazement (as I suspect they were intended). What I think this book would be best suited for is to be read aloud to smallish children. If read to children just on the cusp of being able to read a middle-grade book, those able to follow a story over a number of days/nights but not yet able to read it all on their own, they would go to bed each night with the image of amazing creatures in their mind but not be old enough to expect much in the line of a story. Even the dialogue, which I found extremely stiff and un-natural (too many shalls, musts and upons and too few contractions) would probably work if being acted out in some fashion.

When reviewing a book that was written for an audience other than myself, I always try to review it from the standpoint of the intended audience. After-all, it isn’t the fault of Wolfe that I’m not the right age for his book. But in this case, I got a distinct impression (though, to be fair, I’m not certain what gave me the impression) that, like Harry Potter or Alice in Wonderland, two books that The Eyes of the Desert Sand takes a lot of inspiration from, it was trying to have cross-generational appeal. So it didn’t feel right to review it solely on its allure to children. If I had to work on a numerical scale, I would give this book a 3 for adult enjoyment and a 4 for that of a child. We’ll average that out to a 3.5.