Review: This should have been a five star story, except for my confusion about Realms
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 01 12, 2014
Draykon: Book 1 (The Draykon Series) by Charlotte E. EnglishI really liked this novel. This is not my genre of choice but I think because I had recently read a few books on dragons this came up as a possible choice. This has a sort of YA feel to it at the beginning, but as it develops so does the writing. It took a while to get into this one and it took a while for the world building.I thought the character of Llandry was quite interesting. She come off as sort of shy and reserved to almost a point of being debilitated by it. I've met a few of these people and Llandry seemed quite real in her fears and anxieties.I had some difficulty identifying what race Llandry was (perhaps fairy because she has wings) Her parents seem to be a mix but maybe it was just that some have wings and some don't that made this confusing for me.Eva seems to be of the human race, at least several times human is the word used to associate with her and those she works with. They are sorcerers and summoners.I was confused about the realms they lived in.Seven realms are mentioned in the story and shown by the map; they consist of the Daylands and the Darklands. Daylands are kept under the daycloak and Dark under the night cloak. By the map it would be easy to infer that Irbel, Glinnery, Orlind, and Nimdre are of the dayland though the glossary only mentions Irbel and Glinnery. It also seems infer-able that Glour, Orstwych and Ullarn are of the darklands but that is not made clear by the glossary.In the text we see this which maybe clears up a bit of how the seven are divided.[Quote]You of Glinnery are Daylanders, as are Irbel and, as far as we can tell, Orlind. Glour, Orstwych, and Ullarn are Darklanders of the Lowers. Only Nimdre has no allegiance: we live halfway in between, faithful neither to one nor the other.[/Quote]English, Charlotte E. (2011-08-31). Draykon (Draykon Series) (p. 282).  . Kindle Edition.Orlind is otherwise mentioned as mostly closed off from people.To add to the confusion there are the Upper Realms the Middle Realms and the Lower Realms. From the glossary it might be easy to infer that the Upper Realms and Lower Realms are separate from each other and might be existing in intersecting planes to the Seven Realms but its not absolutely clear that the Middle Realms is another plane or the plane of the Seven Realms and the Middle are not in the glossary.In the glossary Upper and Lower are referred to as Off-Worlds, which reinforces the thought that the middle realm might be the Seven Realms.[Quote]Nobody knows whether they originated in the Uppers or the Lowers or the space in between: the Middle Realm, which was once a chaos of conflicting influences from both sides.[/Quote]English, Charlotte E. (2011-08-31). Draykon (Draykon Series) (p. 282).  . Kindle Edition.The plot itself became predictable to me about halfway through. The character of Llandry had some similarities in her obsession with the Gem stones with Gollum of Tolkein's Lord of the Ring Trilogy. It interfered with the romance of the story since it was difficult at times to see that her wish to travel with Devary was equal part an attraction to him and her obsession. Predictably the obsession gets in the way of a lot of things.The predictability of the outcome of the story is important in this novel. I don't want to hand it out because some people might cry spoiler, but I really think the reader has to pick up on this or they might eventually cry Deus ex machina. This novel is far from that, but you do need to pick up on a few things within the plot as it goes along or it will certainly look that way.I would really love to give this five stars but I am afraid that my confusion about the Realms has caused it to be downgraded and though this may seem unfair, I can't give this five stars when I went away confused about something that is very important to the plot since there is a speculation about whether the upper, lower and middle were meant to be separated as they are. (That's if the middle is the Seven Realms.)Great fantasy novel for fantasy lovers with well fleshed out characters for the story and I'm looking forward to the next two novels and hoping that they help resolve my confusion.J.L. Dobias