Review: fresh young adult fantasy
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 05 15, 2014
Arianne, the Queen of Meranthia is overthrown and killed by her mutinous guards. Her son, Prince Ronan, manages to escape. However, everyone believes him to be dead. Ronan then spends the next five years plotting his revenge against his mothers killer who has now taken the throne of Meranthia. Merric Pride, the self proclaimed King is segregating the Ayralen migrants and holding them in concentration camps. Ronan must overthrow Merric Pride and free the Ayralen people. But first he must solve the riddle of Elan’s and Lora’s hearts, the essence of all magic. Help will come to him from an unexpected avenue.Matthew Ballard’s Shard Knight is a fresh newcomer to the fantasy genre. The storyline was skilfully thought out and flowed well. It was refreshing to read the myriad of original ideas concerning the use of magic and how it was obtained.Described with just enough detail to picture the scenes but not get bogged down with unnecessary wording. Ronan was always a gentleman and was in danger of coming across as a little weak at times. I was relieved when he finally decided to fight rather than surrender to fate.” A storm of raw anger boiled in Ronan’s emerald green eyes.” No. This won’t end here. Not like this.” He screamed with primal rage and channelled a vast amount of shard energy.”Well written for the YA Fantasy audience with lots of twist and turns to keep the reader entranced.