Emberhawk by Jamie Foley Book Review
ARC kindly provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review
Emberhawk. What a ride!
With its epic fantasy setting and enticing writing, I couldn’t help but enjoy myself whilst reading this book. I enjoyed the three perspective story telling and the banter between Ryon and Kira, I thought they were well rounded and strong characters written with good dialogue and interpersonal relations.
With those points being what I enjoyed about the book, there were a few things that I disliked which really dampened my rating score. My issue really came with the plot, some perspectives, details and characterisation. I hope that in the future books, the world–which definitely had potential– would be explored further. Especially with the elemental magic system.
Although I did pick up a majority of the information presented in the glossary at the start of the book, there were some details with the magic that were a bit confusing such as the extent of power on the basis of social status, location etc. It was clear there was a differentiation but no further detail was provided as to what this entailed.
Unfortunately this wasn’t my only issue. I found that the plot was extremely loose. Although there was talk of a brewing war (which I know for a fact will end up being at the forefront of the next two books) there really was no reason for Princess Vylia’s perspective. I was trying to work out throughout the book where she fit into the plot. Although her role as a mediator was obviously related to this overarching story of war, in this particular novel I found myself questioning her involvement in the telling of Emberhawk as a novel by itself. This comes back to the plot, yet again which, as I said was loose. If you asked me what Emberhawk (not the series but rather this book in particular) was about plot wise, I’ll struggle to explain it all too well and the reason behind that is simple. The characters both had reasons for being in town however, there was no reason that I could deduct for them to go on this journey. I was trying to find some reasoning behind it however, I failed in this regard. It was like:
-Guy ends up being kidnapped by girl -Guy escapes and is wounded in the process -Girl finds him (also wounded) and they end up continuing forward rather than returning home
And yes, I do realise that they were trying to find medicine, I think, for Kira’s mother but that goal was muddled in somewhere and at times, I completely forgot what the whole point of their quest in the first place actually was.
But plot aside, I did like Ryon. He was my favourite character. I didn’t mind Kira… until I did. It was halfway through the book that I found her to be really annoying and at times extremely naive. There was one part in the book where Ryon and Kira had to lie for their own safety and Kira was very slow and questioning Ryon at terrible times. I understand this was obviously because she was in a completely new environment with strange and difficult circumstances but her naivety really annoyed me and at times I found myself even eyerolling at some of her dialogue or actions.
All in all, this seems to be a very promising series but if I was rating this based on a standalone, there were a few things that fell flat when it could’ve been amazing. That being said, there definitely is room for improvement!
ACTUAL RATING: 3.4 STARS
