Falling Kingdoms

Title: Falling Kingdoms

 

Author: Morgan Rhodes

Publisher: Razor Bill (2012)

 

Genre(s): Fiction, Fantasy

Length: 412 pages

Synopsis: The land of Mytica was once a peaceful place.  Its prosperity and harmony were maintained by the power of the Kindred, four crystals uniting the power of the four elements, but the crystals were lost long ago.  Now the land and the people are divided, separated into three kingdoms with no love lost between them.  Tensions are rising, and soon war seems inevitable.  The king of Limeros to the north is prepared to make alliances with the chieftain of Paelsia, ready to march on Auranos in the south.  Princess Cleo of Auranos, however, has concerns of her own.  Her elder sister Emilia is dying, and nothing short of powerful magic can save her.  She's prepared to brave hostile territory and her father's wrath to find the cure, but there are powers even greater at play in Mytica, powers that were prophesied more than sixteen years ago...

 

My Rating: 2 Stars

My Opinion:  I knew that I was not going to like this book about ten pages in.  I found myself rolling my eyes at the situations and dialogue that early, and while I hoped that it just needed some time to get up to speed, it never did.  The characters' speech has a tendency to sound out of place in this supposedly high-fantasy world, and while there does seem to be a solid skeleton of plot beneath this story, it's clad in spiderwebs rather than flesh.  The characters are marched through the story, told where they're going and how they feel by the plot, rather than letting their unique traits dictate their actions.  I was immediately put off by the "Cast of Characters" listed in the front of the book... the cast is really quite small, and if the reader can't be expected to remember even that scant list... well, if that's the case, I'm not sure how anyone ever got through a work by Tolkien.  I do read a lot of fantasy, both good and bad; while my expectations are high, I also understand what makes a good fantasy and where they fall short.  This one, sadly, had all the latter qualities.

Every Last Kiss

Title: Every Last Kiss (The Bloodstone Saga)

Author: Courtney Cole

Publisher: Lakehouse Press (April 2011)

Genre(s): Young Adult Fiction, Fantasy, Historical, Chick Lit

Length: 252 pages

Synopsis: Macy, a modern teenager, receives a strange bloodstone necklace which turns her world upside down.  Suddenly she is no longer just a modern teenager but the only the newest iteration of herself.  She is a guardian of fate, reincarnated time and again, and each time with a destiny: somewhere in the world is a soul she is destined to protect at any cost.

My Rating: 2 Stars

My Opinion:

At the Decatur Book Festival, I was given a card for a free copy of the ebook.  A brilliant marketing tactic, this simple offer had me downloading the book at the next available opportunity.  I’ll admit, I had low expectations (after all, it was free), and I must say, I was not disappointed.  The idea behind this novel is good, brilliant even.  Destiny, fate, true love, secrets, loyalty, loss.  These are the components on which this novel draws, and though they offer the potential for a wonderful, complex, multi-layered story, the execution is rather lackluster.  For a historical fiction, the historical details are sparse and surface level at best.  Dialogue and character voice in particular read as modern, sometimes painfully so.  I find Macy believable neither as a 17 year old girl, nor as a timeless reincarnation of a guardian of Fate.  The pacing of the book is also off-putting.  Villains come and go, changing loyalties and timelines until readers are left wondering whose side they’re on.  Characters accept monumental revelations without batting heavily made-up eyelashes.  As a quick read, it’ll do in a pinch, but there are many books I’d recommend over this one.