Review: Exciting themed anthology with living breathing characters
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 06 19, 2014
I love reading an anthology, especially one with a theme.In Portals you get five authors spinning their own tales about a portal.Ordinary WorldAmy Silva has a new neighbor. Ozzie dresses like a nerd but that’s not why he gives her the creeps. She senses evil.When she tries to explain her feelings to her best friend Remy, he warns her to be careful what she says. People will think she’s a witch.When Remy starts avoiding her, Amy is left alone to unravel the mystery of her new neighbor.For such a short story, there were many characters. I had a fun time weeding out the bad guys. It wasn’t too hard but I still enjoyed being vindicated when I was right.A fun tale of witches with an exhilarating ending.Moranda’s QuestMoranda fears her sojourn through the portal. Dragons tread there. The Grand Wizard bestowed it as a gift to her family and each generation, a girl enters the portal to discover her future.Moranda is skilled with the blade and she’s prepared for battle. Lennox, the young man in love with her knows this and has to fight his natural instincts to protect her.All the rules change when Moranda goes through the portal and the author took me in a different direction than I expected. That’s the fun thing about this fantasy, nothing was set in stone.Mexmur, The HuntressIf you love dragons, this ones for you.Mexmur is forced to enter the portal to recharge a talisman of magic. The King is willing to sacrifice her and his son in his quest to steal power from the dragons.Can a spoiled prince and a lowly huntress survive the dragon’s breath? Or will they become a meal?Mexmur is a huntress so she has skills to hunt the dragon. The spoiled prince has some surprises of his own and I grew to like him. These two both learn a lot once through the portal and the dragons are great teachers.I really enjoyed the dragon characters. They had their own agenda and played a big part in the story.Entrance of Lost SoulsI like where the author went with this one. I kept thinking the main character was human, forgetting these are fantasies and there are no rules.Gladys is definitely not human, and you wouldn’t expect her to be a good guy.She is though and she has to be a tough character to handle a banshee, demons, and whatever the thing is in the well.Where Once Were HeartsWhen Bartholemew Battlesby loses his fortune he sets out to befriend his only living relative, cousin Horatio Grimsby, hoping he’ll take him in.He arrives at a gated estate landscaped with eerie mechanical trees. Upon entering he discovers Horatio dead, his heart torn from his body. And then things go dark.When Bart wakes up, he’s suspended upside from the ceiling and the luscious but wicked Evangeline reveals her plans for him.Bartholemew had to think hard and quick if he wasn’t going to lose his heart, literally.At first, Bartholemew came across as a loser. He did waste his fortune and he did hope to ingratiate himself with Grimsby, hoping to become heir to his estate. But I liked his pluck.The same goes for Evangeline. She is a murderess, but what made her that way?Had a lot of fun figuring this one out.Lunatic QueenSweethearts Tamara and Pavel are on a mission to destroy the Night Queen. Her reign of perpetual darkness is causing all life to suffer from slow starvation. Someone has to do something.As they begin their journey, the volksa, a kind of werewolf, attack and force them to take cover in an old library. There, they find an unlikely ally. Now they just need the queen to take the bait and free their world of darkness.This had an eerie atmosphere right from the beginning. The volksa add an element of danger and the Night Queen is evil through and through.While the ending was bitter-sweet, it fit and I wouldn’t have it any other way.I enjoyed all of these stories. The authors did a great job building new worlds and introducing their characters. If I’m not mistaken, some of these stories are debuts and I couldn’t tell which ones.  I’d definitely read more if they chose to develop these into novels and now I’m curious about their other books.I own this book.