Review: James Maxwell - Enchantress

Title: Enchantress

Author: James Maxwell

Website: http://www.jamesmaxwell.com/

My rating: 5 Stars

Kindle:

Wow. I don't even know where to begin with this one. This story is the first in a series of the Evermen Saga. It is, basically, about two children who lost their parents at an early age. We get to follow them as they grow in their own unique ways, through the laughter and tears, through the good times, and when all hope seems to be gone. Yet it is so very much more than just that.

I really enjoyed the majority of the characters in this novel. It follows a basic belief of mine that, for the most part, 'bad guys' truly believe they are doing what is best for the world, as wrong as that is sometimes. In some cases, their end goal would be better for humanity, but the steps they take to meet those goals are absolutely horrifying! This book does a really amazing job of portraying this.

The world has magic that relies on essence, with each area knowing and guarding the knowledge of a particular type of runes, required to be drawn with the essence and activated with words. Each land specializes in a different area of these runes. Personally, I was thrilled with the magic system. It's different from what I see used in a lot of other fantasy novels. I love seeing different magic systems and how the author succeeds in keeping a balance between being powerful yet still having limits.

The different lands (and people from those lands) were fascinating. The author paints a sharp picture in my mind of what these lands look like. The vivid detail had me completely drawn in, I felt like I was there, next to the character I was currently reading the viewpoint of. I really would have enjoyed reading more about the enchanting school, I could probably enjoy an entire novel on that alone!

Overall, I am extremely impressed with this novel. There were times that I wasn't so confident that my favourite characters would survive. That's fairly hard to do to me because of the unspoken law that unless they're really minor, characters just do not die in fantasy novels. Well, for the most part anyway. A few authors are known for it, but in my experience it's pretty rare.

Yet but once again, I'm left setting down my e-reader, wondering what in the world I'm going to do. It's going to take a few months before I'm able to get the sequel, and I could just cry with the want to continue on. I'll revert back to my 5-year old self and just sit in the corner and throw a tantrum for a little while until I find something shiny to occupy me! Back to being serious though, if you enjoy long fantasy novels, this book is a must! And (I know, never start a sentence with "and", sue me) at the time of writing this review, the first book is FREE!!!! What have you got to lose? Just be prepared to get sucked into the swirling vortex that all book lovers yearn to find. You have been warned.