by Rebecca F. Kenney
Rating: ****
I read this to take myself out of a comfort zone – it’s not a genre I have ever read before so I thought it was about time to give it a go. It’s YA aimed and I did initially buy it for my 13 yo daughter but decided to read first myself as I was curious. The first few chapters I struggled with but I suspect it is was because I was not used to the genre and the fact it’s pitched at YA and I’m a long way from that. I was pleased that the Irish lore was not too dense or the far-fetched. I also thought the story was deceptively clever; it read really easily and yet, without realising it, there were enough twists, turns and nuances to keep you hooked without confusing. There were large swathes of the narrative when I could not put this down, I began to race towards the end as I was really enjoying it and I will think about it for some time. Also, I liked the fact that despite being part of a series, this book stands alone. I’m not generally a reader of series novels but I would definitely consider reading the next one. I read this in hard copy and at first was a bit baffled by the very short paragraph structure, but it really worked. I’ve not seen it used before throughout a whole novel and it made the chapters flow and suited the narrative. The only criticism would be that I could not always differentiate in character between Aislinn and Zane, there sometimes needed to be more definition in the dialogue or something although he did develop more towards the end and I could visualise him whereas he seemed a bit indistinct for parts of the novel. All in all a very good YA fantasy read and I’m jolly pleased to have picked it up and come out of my comfort zone and I will definitely be recommending it to my daughter.
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