Afternoon readers, another fantasy book for you today once again. Quick question for authors out there: I’m looking for romance books. I used to adore romance genre books but recently I’ve been getting less and less requests to reviews of said genre. In terms of reviews of fantasy books, I’m not going to be doing many for a little while; it’s my most requested and least liked genre and I’ve got so many more books that need my attention and I’m not sure I’m doing these fantasy books enough justice? The ones in my inbox I will get round to but just a few less in the coming weeks. Today’s is another from the author Colleen Mackey and you can see my other review here if you so fancy, if you don’t, wasting no more time, onto this review!
A thousand years ago the gods known as The Four created the Immortals to protect and defend their world against an invader known as the Dro-Aconi—and then vanished. Left to fend for themselves, the three races of Ein-Aral and the Immortals banded together to save the world. Ivo, Jaeger, Jadeth, and Emaranthe must protect a desert village and its hoard of Starstone, a power source that can aid the Dro-Aconi’s plans for the dominion over Ein-Aral. Can the companions battle inner demons long enough to defeat legions of enemies and keep the enemy from seizing the Starstone?
So the first thing to note is that this is a really short novella, could easily be polished off on the bus to work, over your lunch-break and finally completed on the happy bus route home. Well at least I did. I thought what was really wonderful is that the book starts on the first page, straight into the action no dilly-dallying around. Punch you in the face action immediately. The book moves with a lot of pace, which with such a short number of pages you could be forgiven for thinking that it’s sparse in content but the author really pushes the action as to get the most out of the pages. For me it really helped to hold my interest and made me want to keep going right to the end.
As the blurb states the immortals are created by the gods known as The Four. These immortals are sent on a quest to protect the world of Ein-Aral from evil known as Dro-Aconi. Task = protecting a village full of innocent people which just happens to have a powerful resource that could be used by demons, potentially bringing about the end of the world as we know it. Although the book was short I think the author packed a lot in, in terms of content. For example each of the four has a unique power which can also work together to help overthrow the demons. We do get a few snap-shot glimpses into the background of each of the four but it doesn’t overtake the action that is being thrown at us but it does help to give a foundation to the story as whole.
I found the Immortal Emaranthe, who holds power over fire, really intriguing and exciting. She has a child-like appearance but yet she has been an Immortal for over three hundred years. Ivo can control the wind, and his brother Jaeger has the power to control water. Finally we have Jadeth who is an elf who can heal. My only complaint here is that we don’t quite get enough about any of them due to the shortness of the book. For me I just wanted a little more to make it feel more real and genuine.
The ending definitely set up the interest for a sequel and although it was a little clichéd in terms of what happens I think that it sets up the next book to start packing the action in once again. I thought the writing of the demons was quite original and the idea that if the immortals physical bodies die then they need to find new hosts was all written well and compacted in. The writing is strong and evocative of what’s going on and really helps to place the reader in the fantasy world.
My only real complaint was a couple of grammatical and punctuation problems throughout but it’s only a little draw-back. Overall a perfect fantasy read, perfect for your lunchbreak and a little escapism to a fantasy land.
Linnnnks
mylittlebookblog 