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Nevermore
Oriel Toussaint looks 16.
Her passport says that she’s 21.
If she had a birth certificate, you would know she’s actually 1,248.
Joining a mercenary army, led by her associate Felix Hatt, a medieval magician, the troops race across the European continent based on the premise of an ancient prophecy. The use of a mythical portal to transport a chosen volunteer, in possession of a magic-infused key, and that selected person will be sent to a fabled location containing a legendary secret.
Fighting off the dark army attacks and reaching their goal, Felix sent the Chosen One, golden crown atop his blond head, into the activated portal.
When the surge of intense energy and the blinding flash dissipated, the crown lay upon the ground, the young volunteer having been vaporized.
No longer facing extinction, the dark army disappeared for centuries. Last year, though, troubling signs of their reappearance came to Oriel’s attention. Tracking down her mentor Felix, passed out in a Hollywood bar, the two hatch a plan to get the old band back together again.
To defeat the dark army, the dysfunctional new team must locate the golden crown, identify another volunteer, bring them together at a portal site they have yet to identify, and hope that the ancient prophecy isn’t simply a fairy tale.
Her passport says that she’s 21.
If she had a birth certificate, you would know she’s actually 1,248.
Joining a mercenary army, led by her associate Felix Hatt, a medieval magician, the troops race across the European continent based on the premise of an ancient prophecy. The use of a mythical portal to transport a chosen volunteer, in possession of a magic-infused key, and that selected person will be sent to a fabled location containing a legendary secret.
Fighting off the dark army attacks and reaching their goal, Felix sent the Chosen One, golden crown atop his blond head, into the activated portal.
When the surge of intense energy and the blinding flash dissipated, the crown lay upon the ground, the young volunteer having been vaporized.
No longer facing extinction, the dark army disappeared for centuries. Last year, though, troubling signs of their reappearance came to Oriel’s attention. Tracking down her mentor Felix, passed out in a Hollywood bar, the two hatch a plan to get the old band back together again.
To defeat the dark army, the dysfunctional new team must locate the golden crown, identify another volunteer, bring them together at a portal site they have yet to identify, and hope that the ancient prophecy isn’t simply a fairy tale.
294 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 17, 2023
5 people are currently reading
697 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
September 1, 2023
First, the cover: I liked the artwork. In thumbnail, it looked like the girl had a sword for a hand, but on larger view this was not the case but that’s okay. I liked the Poe-invoking title and raven. The font and placement of the cover text is awful, though. But we don’t judge books exclusively by their covers.
So, the prologue: no good. It’s just an explanation of the foundational world lore. “Show, don’t tell” is writing advice that can mean many different things, but here it means there was a huge missed opportunity. If there was an epic war between good and evil in the remote past that bears tremendous significance for the future, why not dramatically demonstrate those events? Make a scene that shows a moment from the end of the war, when the prevailing forces desperately created hidden instructions for confronting the same evil in the future, something that shows some real stakes involving mythic characters. Don’t just sketch a plain general summary of an info-dump. These are not the prologues we like.
Chapter 1 wasn’t off to a great start either. It was immediately repetitive and excessively wordy. And then confusing. The writing notably lacked clarity about what stated details had to do with the sentence in question, when and where specific actions took place, with a confusion of verb tenses, and characters and objects of importance seemingly jumping onto the page out of nowhere. I’ll post my highlights and notes from the ebook to illustrate some of this.
I wanted to give it a chance to at least start the main story, so I kept reading. Chapter divisions didn’t always make sense, as in very short chapters that had no reason to be separated from the ones before or after. Timelines in chapter headings lacked a frame of reference; if events are marked as happening “tomorrow”, what day is that in relation to? I read until about the 20% mark, then skimmed some more until 30% but I didn’t find any whiff of story stakes to latch onto. The confusion-laden writing that marked the earliest chapters seemed to phase out somewhat when the story moved into contemporary time, but by that point I couldn’t find any reason to keep reading. As a positive, the main characters were given some personality in the contemporary period.
There may be an okay story in here. The book’s description was enough to make me initially think, “maybe”. But I didn’t find any stakes beyond “good vs evil” in the parts I made it through, and that’s not a great motivation. The background didn’t help: a mass of demons, the forces of evil personified, put in a no-holds-barred effort to stop the fulfillment of a prophecy that could (maybe?) undo them. But that effort fizzles out at the moment of climax (the “Chosen One” proved not to be such), rather than take the opportunity to wipe out all goodness and light and humanity, those evil forces apparently were like, “Nah, we’re good” and noped out to lie in secret for more centuries, because reasons.
So that’s a nope for me.
I won a copy of this book in a Goodreads giveaway.
So, the prologue: no good. It’s just an explanation of the foundational world lore. “Show, don’t tell” is writing advice that can mean many different things, but here it means there was a huge missed opportunity. If there was an epic war between good and evil in the remote past that bears tremendous significance for the future, why not dramatically demonstrate those events? Make a scene that shows a moment from the end of the war, when the prevailing forces desperately created hidden instructions for confronting the same evil in the future, something that shows some real stakes involving mythic characters. Don’t just sketch a plain general summary of an info-dump. These are not the prologues we like.
Chapter 1 wasn’t off to a great start either. It was immediately repetitive and excessively wordy. And then confusing. The writing notably lacked clarity about what stated details had to do with the sentence in question, when and where specific actions took place, with a confusion of verb tenses, and characters and objects of importance seemingly jumping onto the page out of nowhere. I’ll post my highlights and notes from the ebook to illustrate some of this.
I wanted to give it a chance to at least start the main story, so I kept reading. Chapter divisions didn’t always make sense, as in very short chapters that had no reason to be separated from the ones before or after. Timelines in chapter headings lacked a frame of reference; if events are marked as happening “tomorrow”, what day is that in relation to? I read until about the 20% mark, then skimmed some more until 30% but I didn’t find any whiff of story stakes to latch onto. The confusion-laden writing that marked the earliest chapters seemed to phase out somewhat when the story moved into contemporary time, but by that point I couldn’t find any reason to keep reading. As a positive, the main characters were given some personality in the contemporary period.
There may be an okay story in here. The book’s description was enough to make me initially think, “maybe”. But I didn’t find any stakes beyond “good vs evil” in the parts I made it through, and that’s not a great motivation. The background didn’t help: a mass of demons, the forces of evil personified, put in a no-holds-barred effort to stop the fulfillment of a prophecy that could (maybe?) undo them. But that effort fizzles out at the moment of climax (the “Chosen One” proved not to be such), rather than take the opportunity to wipe out all goodness and light and humanity, those evil forces apparently were like, “Nah, we’re good” and noped out to lie in secret for more centuries, because reasons.
So that’s a nope for me.
I won a copy of this book in a Goodreads giveaway.
July 18, 2023
Enjoyed this book. Thank you
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews