Review: Great world but didn't really feel the story.
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 08 31, 2013
*I was provided a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.*This book is the story of two girls, Roxy and Jazz, living in two completely different realms in a world where each realm has the power of an element. Roxy lives in the Helian realm, the fire realm, and is the grandaughter of the current King. She is also a Protector, which means she can use the element of her realm, fire. On the other hand Jazz, is living in the Arcan realm, the air realm. She has no idea where she came from since she found as a baby and she doesn't really look like anyone in her realm or any of the other realms for that matter. She is also the best friend of the Arcan prince and is keeping a very unique secret.When the Helian King invites representatives of each realm to visit his Kingdom everyone is very suspicious but no one even imagines the true purpose behind his invitation. And it's worse than anything they can think of, because the Helians are hidding their most dangerous power. They can Control the mind of other people.First off let's start with what I enjoyed. The world that Heather James has created is amazing. It has structure, it's well built, it has a compelling history and people with amazing powers in it. The whole elememtal powers part of the story was the other thing I truly enjoyed. I simply love books were the characters can manipulate the elements. Then there is the mystery behind Jazz and her growing powers, which it's not such a big mystery really cause there are plenty of hints about it and then we learn about the history of the realms and you can pretty much guess where she is came from. I even have a theory about who her parents are, specifically. But still it's a good add to the story.Unfortunately there were also a lot of things I didn't enjoy that much one of them being the characters. I couldn't connect to them. I didn't find any of them interesting or someone I could feel sympathy for. I don't know how that is since both of the main characters were going through a lot. Still if I were to pick a favourite character it'd be Brae and I wasn't a huge fan of him either. Then there was the story. It was slow. It didn't have any real action until the very last chapters and even then I didn't feel part of the action. It felt more like someone was telling what was going on instead of showing me.All in all, it was an interesting read. I don't know why I felt so disconnected with the characters but that might not be the case with someone else reading the story. So if you are a fan of books with characters using the elements this could be a good read.