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Saturday, August 27, 2022

Reader's Review: "Hunter" by Joanna White

Synopsis from Amazon:

A reckless young woman named Averella does what no woman has ever done. She disguises herself as a man and purposefully gets herself arrested and thrown into Zagerah. Her brother Gabriel was taken, and with his disease, he will not survive on his own. She has no idea what to expect inside the prison; all she knows is that once men get taken, they never come back.

The Hunters will find her.

Genetically altered to be faster and stronger than humans, the Hunters use their powers to find and kill every prisoner who enters Zagerah. The only ones who can defeat them, are in fact, themselves.

Jared is a Hunter. It’s all he’s known, all he remembers. He kills ruthlessly and without regret, one prisoner after another. When a new prisoner Dalex shows up, everything begins to change. Jared goes undercover to make Dalex and the other prisoners believe he is one of them, a prisoner himself.

No one knows the truth. He will trick them. Toy with them. Then, he will kill them.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>

My Review:

Going by the blurb, one might reasonably expect this story to read like a "Mulan"-type knockoff, right? At least, if Mulan met, say, Shan Yu's son and the two were plunged into an "enemies-to-lovers" type situation. Basic storytelling at its most basic, am I right?

But this is not that. From the very beginning, Joanna White gives us a story that feels familiar, yet plays out in unique and unpredictable ways. All of my expectations were blown away by the end of the first chapter, and I could just settle in to enjoy a thrilling tale with plenty of twists, and no idea where or how it would end up, eventually. Would the slaves really escape? Would Averella's identity be uncovered? Could Dalex be the one to stop Jared from killing all the slaves, or would the story end with everyone dead, and the Hunters succeeding in doing their dark master's will, with any sort of resolution left to the sequels?

White keeps the suspense going by dividing the point of view between Jared and Averella. Occasionally, readers will see the same scenes repeated from each perspective, but other times the new point-of-view picks up where the other left off--and yet no matter which way it goes, the energy never wanes. The story keeps rolling at a brisk pace, captivating the reader's attention as they piece together what's really going on as a combination of the two narratives. I really enjoyed the fact that doing this allowed the reader an extra dimension as to the motivation behind their choices and responses, one that we wouldn't get just from one perspective or another.

I also really loved the whole concept of the Hunters. Their origins, the unique superpowers they are given, and the significance behind the reason they exist. Each of them has a unique power that gives them an advantage (and White's creativity in designing each ability cannot be understated!) yet with it comes a flaw that will render all their Hunter abilities inaccessible. The fugitives take a Hunter captive at one point and then run into a choice of whether to render the Hunter incapacitated through his flaw, or let him keep his abilities, so that the fugitives could use them as an advantage against their pursuers. An extra level of intrigue that opens the door to many plot twists the reader won't see coming!

Finally, the world-building in this novel is top-notch. I could picture each of the environments clearly as I read, and the various threats and struggles faced by the fugitive slaves as they attempt to escape Zagerah were astonishing--even including some mermaids at one point! Although these Merfolk were nothing like the ones I was used to, more the conniving, vicious, Siren-type of creatures. But still awesome!

Hunter easily earns a full *****5 STARS***** and I'd even add to that an Upstream Writer Certified WHOLEHEARTEDLY RECOMMENDED. There are some good moral lessons to be learned in this clean fantasy adventure, all wrapped up and woven through an amazing story with dynamic characters and the potential for wonderment in every book in the Valiant series!


Further Reading: (Clean Reads/Fantasy Adventure/Awesome World-Buidling)

The Alexander Legacy--Sophronia Belle Lyon
       -A Dodge, A Twist, and A Tobacconist 
       -The Pinocchio Factor
The Chronicles of Lorrek--Kelly Blanchard
        -Someday I'll Be Redeemed 
        -I Still Have A Soul 
        -I'm Still Alive 
        -Do You Trust Me? 
        -You Left Me No Choice 
        -They Must Be Stopped 
        -Find Me If You Can 
Verona: The Complete Mermaid Tales--Pauline Creeden
       -Scales 
       -Submerged 
       -Salt 
       -Surfacing
The Bhinian Empire--Miriam Forster
     -City of A Thousand Dolls 
     -Empire of Shadows
Wonderland Guardian Academy Series--Pauline Creeden
       -Red The Wolf Tracker
The Time Tree Chronicles--Lisa Rae Morris
       -The Emergence

Tuesday, August 2, 2022

Reader's Review: "King's Warrior" by Jenelle Leanne Schmidt


 Synopsis from Amazon:

The hope of their world rests on the steel at his side...

Threat of invasion looms. Oraeyn dreams of glory on the battlefield. Instead, he must engage in a battle of wills with a headstrong princess while ushering her to safety (and boredom) in a small village. But they must put aside their differences to save their homeland and complete the second part of their mission: seek out the legendary King’s Warrior to persuade him to take up arms once more.

When their journey leads them to the lost realm of the dragons they get more adventure than either of them bargained for!
>>>>>>>>>

My Review:

There is something to be said for a good, forthright, low fantasy novel! In fact, it plays into a genre I'm just learning about, "noblebright" fantasy, sort of set up as the opposite of "grimdark." Where grimdark fantasy is depressing, dystopian, gritty, and hopeless, usually populated by thugs, thieves, duplicitous noblemen, vagabonds, and antiheroes at best... Noblebright plays into the opposites of that: the characters are typically virtuous, the setting is peaceful and picturesque, challenges do exist, but they're often morally corrupt, and the virtuous heroes and heroines band together to outsmart and defeat the wicked villains.

King's Warrior is a shining example of noblebright fantasy. King Arnaud rules Aom-igh fairly and well, the most recent in a line of kings who established the kingdom after deflecting Dark Warriors from the Dark Country and preventing them from overwhelming and subjugating the people. This is done with the help of the Dragons, who subsequently disappear after promising that, should the Dark Country threaten again, they will lend their aid.

That time is now, but where are the dragons? One person might know where they are, but no one has seen this former King's Warrior in many years. To seek out the King's former friend, King Arnaud sends his own daughter, a trustworthy squire, and the Princess' faithful maidservant. They must travel across the kingdom, braving storms, suspicious villagers, treacherous magic-users, and the first indications of Dark Warrior "strike teams" hitting entire villages and burning them down in preparation for the invasion that looms ever closer with each day they spend looking for the King's Warrior.

It's a clean enough adventure, suitable for middle-grade readers, and I very much enjoyed the plot twists and the plot that was only somewhat predictable. There were some twists that I could see coming the minute the character came on the scene and the other characters expressed their clear assumptions about said character; there were other twists that were on the one hand so delightfully unexpected that I gasped while reading, yet at the same time wondering why the pacing and the narrator kept everyone in the dark for so long.

But that, I think, is the inherent pacing problem that every noblebright fantasy adventure contends with: that protracted journey that is designed to test the predetermined mettle of every specific character, not so much because a group of otherwise-capable people traveling in this region would naturally encounter such a challenge or come into conflict with each other just so... but because there was a point to be made, and the author needed it to be "just so" in order that the point could be made. I am guilty of such a thing myself in my own writing, and I'm trying to be better, but I also recognize how jarring it is to encounter it, as a reader.

That being said, speaking of twists, there are at least three specific twists that happened that were so aptly timed, well-placed, and brilliantly-executed that I'm definitely still interested in seeing how things develop in the rest of the series! I'd give King's Warrior a modest *****4.5 Star Rating***** and I'll include an Upstream Writer Certified RECOMMENDED endorsement. I know there's more in store, from how much I loved Schmidt's short story in a previous anthology (linked below), and I can acknowledge that first books are hard, but it's a decent start, and The Minstrel's Song has only just begun!

Further Reading: (Also By The Author/Clean Reads/Noblebright Fantasy/Sword and Sorcery)
Mythical Doorways--Fellowship of Fantasy (*Contains a story by the author)
The Chronicles of Lorrek--Kelly Blanchard
        -Someday I'll Be Redeemed 
        -I Still Have A Soul 
        -I'm Still Alive 
        -Do You Trust Me? 
        -You Left Me No Choice 
        -They Must Be Stopped 
        -Find Me If You Can 
The Time Tree Chronicles--Lisa Rae Morris
       -The Emergence
The Painter Place Saga--Pamela Poole
       -Painter Place 
       -Hugo 
A Tune Of Demons Series--J. E. Mueller
       -Fire's Song 
       -Spirit's Lullaby