One Good Book Deserves Another

Genre: Fantasy
Series: High Council, Book 1
Rating: 3 Stars
Formats: Paperback


I have nothing but respect for the originality and scope of the author's vision for Dragon's Awakening. It truly was a large, engaging plot with lots of delicious layers and subplots. Unfortunately, the scope and breadth of the story seemed to overwhelm the author and the technical skills necessary to tell such a tale just weren't up to par in this book. For me, it significantly lessened my overall enjoyment of it.

At times choppy and disjointed and at times muddled with mistakes and odd word errors and name confusion, there was no flowing prose to take a reader through the journey of the tale (I'm still not too sure if I just missed something when the author was writing about the vampire Al and the incubus Arkham, who was referred to as Al...despite rereading several sections). Instead I often found myself feeling like I was jumping and hopping around like an asthmatic bloodhound, trying to follow the scent of the story to the end. A strong editor and a few (more?) rewrites would've benefited this book and given the reader a true gem of a story.

Again, the story itself, while not written cleanly, was unarguably brilliant. Good character development, and the characters - some tortured, some flawed, some champions, some a little of everything - were varied and interesting, and really fit well into the plot. And the plot was incredible. I would've liked the exposition to be a little meatier and the world-building to be a little more clear - I had and have questions that I would've liked answers for - but the thought involved to create the world as it was intended is impressive. Very original.

If I could split the review, I'd give the ideas behind the story and the plot of the story a solid 5+ stars - but the way it's written, the technical aspect of the actual words on the page (or screen, for those Kindle aficionados like myself), only 1 star. I've settled on the average here.

I would consider reading a sequel, as there are several threads that are left hanging at the end of this book, and characters whose lives I'd like to revisit, but I'd want to see what other reviewers say about their reading experience first, I think. It's difficult for me to say that, but the mistakes and general lack of a solid prose were quite bad here.