Review: Some promising ideas
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 05 19, 2014
This book shows a lot of promise.  The settings are interesting and there are some truly innovative fantasy creatures to catch the imagination.  The history of the world, the links with Scotland in our own world.  The use of Tarot cards to guide the main character (and the story) onwards was another high point.  Taking those parts together this was an enjoyable book.Unfortunately there is a but.  I really struggled with the characters at times.  They were well written and felt real, however too often it felt that their choices and actions were being driven by the storyline and didn't really fit.  An example is that in several places character A would express severe doubts about the trustworthiness of another character, but then would decide they had no choice other than to trust and so would make the decision to trust fully – putting aside all their doubts.  Not proceeding carefully and watching that person, which would make sense, just dropping all doubts completely.Overall I'd say the book is definitely worth a look for the world and the creatures, but download a sample first.  Perception of characters varies a lot between readers so what caused me problems might not be an issue at all for you.