Daggers and Destiny promised to be an interesting, fantasy-rich prelude to the Althuria Chronicles series thanks to the blurb. But did the short story really persuade me to read the series?
A strange stone. A pursuit for power. A new beginning.
An orphan with no job, no home, and no last name, sixteen-year-old Mala scrapes along day by day with her younger brother, Baz, in their small village.
But when she discovers a mysterious stone, her whole world comes crashing down.
Suddenly, she faces massive adversity, a quest for bloody revenge, and a power so
great she fears it.
Will she find peace amidst the chaos?
Or is her world fated to burn?
Brimming with magic, action, and a riveting quest for revenge, Daggers and Destiny explores a world of ruination and renewal. This prequel is an exciting, epic YA fantasy adventure exploring the wondrous kingdom of Althuria.
To be honest, I don’t know where to start exactly. Because as you can already see in my book overview (see above), the book did not receive a really strong star rating from me. The short story is divided into 15 chapters on 117 pages, and right at the beginning I was thrown into a scene that made it very clear how bad things are for the young protagonist Mala. As a homeless orphan, she struggles every day to support herself and her younger brother Baz. There was a lot of promising potential.
The suspense swiftly—perhaps a little too quickly—develops, tossing Mala from one undesirable circumstance to the next. She may not always be completely innocent here, which can be attributed to her youth and the accompanying lack of life experience.
The first third of Daggers and Destiny could still pull me along, but then the narrative style and the writing style became confused and lost in meaningfulness. The tempo of the plot has suddenly increased so much that far too many, possibly important, details have been left out. The timing of the plot was also illogical. For an alleged distance of 10 minutes, the protagonists then needed hours of running.
After a little more than half I couldn’t stop rolling my eyes because of the worsening writing style and more and more logic errors. While Mala now runs after the villain to take revenge on him, I couldn’t read the pages with full concentration and just skimmed them.
I have to honestly say that I have read the book twice. First in December last year after requesting it through BookSirens. However, due to the holiday hustle and bustle, I found it difficult to concentrate on the plot and wanted to give the story another chance on quieter days. Unfortunately in vain.
CAWPILE
Characters
Atmosphere
Writing
Plot
Intrigue
Overall:
Conclusion
The whole plot felt very forced, and I felt rushed through the short story. It would have benefited the plot if the author had added 50 pages, had left it with more explanations and a slower pace. Due to the disappointment, I will also forego getting into the main story of the Althuria Chronicles. I’m afraid that an immature writing style and too fast pacing as well as logic errors are to be expected.
I received an advance review copy through BookSirens for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
Alle von mir genutzten Bilder zu Buchcovern sind Eigentum der jeweiligen Verlage und/oder AutorInnen bzw. anderer Rechteinhaber. All book cover images I use are the property of the respective publishers and/or authors or other rights holders.
I feel like I'm a million pages old. I've lived thousands of lives, loved, grieved and died many deaths. I've had a home in almost every corner of the earth and in many new worlds. I've made many friends and fought many enemies. ─ Good books aren't read, they're lived and at the end of each book we're left changed. In comparison, reality sometimes just seems grey. ─ They say we're the heroes of our own stories, or the villains. But it often seems very realistic, as if we readers are more like the tragic-comic supporting characters. ─ Goodreads Librarian | My book wish list. ;)
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Daggers and Destiny by Ryver Knight
Yikes, sorry this one didn’t work out for you! Hopefully your next read will be better!
Sometimes we are lucky with an ARC and sometimes we are not. I am confident better books are waiting for me.