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The Dark Prophet #1
Sir Edge
Sir Edge is part one of the Dark Prophet Saga, the beginning of an action-packed new chapter in the Bowl of Souls Universe!
A BOWL OF SOULS NOVEL
The Dark Prophet has been biding his time. He has spent centuries without a body, but now he is ready for his return. There is only one obstacle standing in his way.
In the sixteen years since their marriage, Justan and Jhonate have gone through many adventures together. During this time, Justan has grown into the name given to him by the Bowl of Souls. He is SIR EDGE. He has the fame and glory that he had dreamt of as a child, but those things mean nothing to him anymore. He is now embroiled in a new conflict and driven by a deep pain within him, a pain fifteen years in the making . . .
Join Edge and his bonded on an epic journey that will take them to places both holy and wrought with evil. Ogres and dragons, warriors and wizards are destined to clash, their fates guided by The Bowl of Souls.
The Bowl of Souls series.
THE MOONRAT SAGA
1. Eye of the Moonrat
2. Messenger of the Dark Prophet
3. Hunt of the Bandham
1.5. Hilt's Pride
4. War of Stardeon
5. Mother of the Moonrat
THE JHARRO GROVE SAGA
1. Tarah Woodblade
2. Protector of the Grove
3. Ogre Apprentice
4. The Troll King
5. Priestess of War
6. Behemoth
THE DARK PROPHET SAGA
1. Sir Edge
2. Half Breeds (2021)
A BOWL OF SOULS NOVEL
The Dark Prophet has been biding his time. He has spent centuries without a body, but now he is ready for his return. There is only one obstacle standing in his way.
In the sixteen years since their marriage, Justan and Jhonate have gone through many adventures together. During this time, Justan has grown into the name given to him by the Bowl of Souls. He is SIR EDGE. He has the fame and glory that he had dreamt of as a child, but those things mean nothing to him anymore. He is now embroiled in a new conflict and driven by a deep pain within him, a pain fifteen years in the making . . .
Join Edge and his bonded on an epic journey that will take them to places both holy and wrought with evil. Ogres and dragons, warriors and wizards are destined to clash, their fates guided by The Bowl of Souls.
The Bowl of Souls series.
THE MOONRAT SAGA
1. Eye of the Moonrat
2. Messenger of the Dark Prophet
3. Hunt of the Bandham
1.5. Hilt's Pride
4. War of Stardeon
5. Mother of the Moonrat
THE JHARRO GROVE SAGA
1. Tarah Woodblade
2. Protector of the Grove
3. Ogre Apprentice
4. The Troll King
5. Priestess of War
6. Behemoth
THE DARK PROPHET SAGA
1. Sir Edge
2. Half Breeds (2021)
340 pages, Paperback
Published November 29, 2018
52 people are currently reading
53 people want to read
About the author
Trevor H. Cooley
32 books252 followersI was born in South Carolina and have lived all around the United states. Utah, New Mexico, Michigan and Tennessee.
I started reading novels in second grade and my love of Fantasy started with Lloyd Alexander's Chronicles of Prydain series. I couldn't get enough, continued with David Eddings, Tolkein, Robert Jordan. All I wanted was to become a published writer.
The characters and concepts that eventually became the Bowl of Souls series started in my teens. I wrote short stories, kept notebooks full of ideas, and generally dreamed about my world constantly. There were several attempts at starting a novel over the years.
Not long after I was married, my wife told me to stop talking about the story and write it down. Here I am, many years and rewrites and submissions and rejection letters later taking the plunge into self publishing.
The Bowl of Souls Series:
THE MOONRAT SAGA
1. Eye of the Moonrat
2. Messenger of the Dark Prophet
3. Hunt of the Bandham
1.5. Hilt's Pride
4. War of Stardeon
5. Mother of the Moonrat
THE JHARRO GROVE SAGA
1. Tarah Woodblade
2. Protector of the Grove
3. Ogre Apprentice
4. The Troll King
5. Priestess of War
6. Behemoth (2017)
THE DARK PROPHET SAGA
1. Sir Edge (Upcoming)
TALLOW JONES
1. Tallow Jones: Wizard Detective (Fall 2017)
NOOSE JUMPERS
1. Noose Jumpers: A Mythological Western
2. (Upcoming)
I currently live in Idaho with my wife and four children.
I started reading novels in second grade and my love of Fantasy started with Lloyd Alexander's Chronicles of Prydain series. I couldn't get enough, continued with David Eddings, Tolkein, Robert Jordan. All I wanted was to become a published writer.
The characters and concepts that eventually became the Bowl of Souls series started in my teens. I wrote short stories, kept notebooks full of ideas, and generally dreamed about my world constantly. There were several attempts at starting a novel over the years.
Not long after I was married, my wife told me to stop talking about the story and write it down. Here I am, many years and rewrites and submissions and rejection letters later taking the plunge into self publishing.
The Bowl of Souls Series:
THE MOONRAT SAGA
1. Eye of the Moonrat
2. Messenger of the Dark Prophet
3. Hunt of the Bandham
1.5. Hilt's Pride
4. War of Stardeon
5. Mother of the Moonrat
THE JHARRO GROVE SAGA
1. Tarah Woodblade
2. Protector of the Grove
3. Ogre Apprentice
4. The Troll King
5. Priestess of War
6. Behemoth (2017)
THE DARK PROPHET SAGA
1. Sir Edge (Upcoming)
TALLOW JONES
1. Tallow Jones: Wizard Detective (Fall 2017)
NOOSE JUMPERS
1. Noose Jumpers: A Mythological Western
2. (Upcoming)
I currently live in Idaho with my wife and four children.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
November 30, 2018
Great start to the next part of the series.
So I don't think I need to say much more than is necessary to put down a review if your reading then your probably already invested into the series if your not go get the beginning of these books I highly recommend them so a lot is being set up in this book you won't really find any answers here only questions but maybe you'll get a little closer to the answers. Altogether a fantastic start to the next chapter in the bowl of souls saga. The stage is set the players are moving in to position and the time of the dark prophet's return is nigh. Prepare yourselves for your beloved heroes to face soul shaking hardships and trials that even as mighty as they are only fate will decide who will emerge from the flames of war.
So I don't think I need to say much more than is necessary to put down a review if your reading then your probably already invested into the series if your not go get the beginning of these books I highly recommend them so a lot is being set up in this book you won't really find any answers here only questions but maybe you'll get a little closer to the answers. Altogether a fantastic start to the next chapter in the bowl of souls saga. The stage is set the players are moving in to position and the time of the dark prophet's return is nigh. Prepare yourselves for your beloved heroes to face soul shaking hardships and trials that even as mighty as they are only fate will decide who will emerge from the flames of war.
April 19, 2019
The Bowl of Souls series started out as Justan/Edge's story with him having the majority of viewpoint chapters and him having the most potential to grow and become a major player in the larger story. However, after book 3, Justan stepped into the background a bit, letting other characters share the spotlight and in many ways take over.
While I have enjoyed all of the other stories that have come since, I have been waiting for Justan to step back into the spotlight again and with this book being named after him, I though that here was the time it would happen. Sadly, that isn't the case.
For whatever reason, the only character to ever be named twice at the bowl of souls continues to be the glue that connects a great deal of the characters and storylines, but rarely steps into the role of protagonist. He is often present during specific events, but he is rarely the person leading the way and taking action.
It's disappointing because Edge's story is the one that has interested me throughout this series and kept me coming back, and it is doubly disappointing in this book that promised more of him and didn't deliver.
Overall though the book is well written, the story interesting and I am a fan of the time jump as it has given a lot of characters/stories that were growing stale the chance to progress. It's well worth a read, but I will continue to hold on to the hope that the author will start focusing on Edge again, rather than just teasing us with his potential but leaving him on the sidelines.
While I have enjoyed all of the other stories that have come since, I have been waiting for Justan to step back into the spotlight again and with this book being named after him, I though that here was the time it would happen. Sadly, that isn't the case.
For whatever reason, the only character to ever be named twice at the bowl of souls continues to be the glue that connects a great deal of the characters and storylines, but rarely steps into the role of protagonist. He is often present during specific events, but he is rarely the person leading the way and taking action.
It's disappointing because Edge's story is the one that has interested me throughout this series and kept me coming back, and it is doubly disappointing in this book that promised more of him and didn't deliver.
Overall though the book is well written, the story interesting and I am a fan of the time jump as it has given a lot of characters/stories that were growing stale the chance to progress. It's well worth a read, but I will continue to hold on to the hope that the author will start focusing on Edge again, rather than just teasing us with his potential but leaving him on the sidelines.
November 30, 2019
"'We may have no choice’, she replied.
‘There is always a choice. If anyone can do this, it’s us.’”
4.5. Sir Edge is the newest book in the Bowl of Souls universe and the start of a brand new Saga titled The Dark Prophet. The book takes place 16 years after the conclusion of the Grove saga and puts us right back with the same characters that we learned about all those books ago. It was fun reading about the changes the world had gone through and learning about the new characters that had just been born at the end of the last novel. I typically don’t like ‘recaps’ of old story and plot lines in books, even if it had been a long time since the last novel, but the way he handled it here wasn’t too bad and I found it believable given the magic that works with Edge. I will say that I was happy it focused mostly of Edge and Jhonate point of view throughout most of the book, that would have been my biggest gripe about the Grove saga is that jumped around a little bit too much for me. As it was I was hooked throughout, and it was mostly due to my love of reading behind the main protagonists prospective. On top of that, the few chapters dedicated to Lucinder were to the point and moved the plot while still giving character depth to him and the people around him.
The characters throughout the book were the same fun loving characters, which we grew to love in the past. While Trevor kept them who they are, he still matured them in a way that only time could. Since his last 2 sagas were so expansive there were plenty of old characters that were not involved but as pointed out before I loved the focus given to Edge and Jhonate that I was perfectly fine with it. To be honest we were given a brief about how most of them were doing and that satisfied my curiosity for the most part.
The world and magic system continues to grow in new and exciting ways and I am looking forward to see where it all goes, and I was happy to see progression in the magic the characters used throughout the 16 years we were away. I was excited to read more about the desert and intrigued to learn more about the surrounding landscapes that have not been touched on in previous books.
Overall if you had not read the previous series it is not necessary, but recommended by me to get caught up. There is no harm to it and in the process you will get a fantastic adventure out of the experience. I thought this beginning novel was stronger than the other 2 beginning novels to the other sagas, and I am looking forward to see where we go from here.
“If my people are defeated tonight, dark times are coming, Edge.”
‘There is always a choice. If anyone can do this, it’s us.’”
4.5. Sir Edge is the newest book in the Bowl of Souls universe and the start of a brand new Saga titled The Dark Prophet. The book takes place 16 years after the conclusion of the Grove saga and puts us right back with the same characters that we learned about all those books ago. It was fun reading about the changes the world had gone through and learning about the new characters that had just been born at the end of the last novel. I typically don’t like ‘recaps’ of old story and plot lines in books, even if it had been a long time since the last novel, but the way he handled it here wasn’t too bad and I found it believable given the magic that works with Edge. I will say that I was happy it focused mostly of Edge and Jhonate point of view throughout most of the book, that would have been my biggest gripe about the Grove saga is that jumped around a little bit too much for me. As it was I was hooked throughout, and it was mostly due to my love of reading behind the main protagonists prospective. On top of that, the few chapters dedicated to Lucinder were to the point and moved the plot while still giving character depth to him and the people around him.
The characters throughout the book were the same fun loving characters, which we grew to love in the past. While Trevor kept them who they are, he still matured them in a way that only time could. Since his last 2 sagas were so expansive there were plenty of old characters that were not involved but as pointed out before I loved the focus given to Edge and Jhonate that I was perfectly fine with it. To be honest we were given a brief about how most of them were doing and that satisfied my curiosity for the most part.
The world and magic system continues to grow in new and exciting ways and I am looking forward to see where it all goes, and I was happy to see progression in the magic the characters used throughout the 16 years we were away. I was excited to read more about the desert and intrigued to learn more about the surrounding landscapes that have not been touched on in previous books.
Overall if you had not read the previous series it is not necessary, but recommended by me to get caught up. There is no harm to it and in the process you will get a fantastic adventure out of the experience. I thought this beginning novel was stronger than the other 2 beginning novels to the other sagas, and I am looking forward to see where we go from here.
“If my people are defeated tonight, dark times are coming, Edge.”
October 7, 2024
** Attention this review is about the whole series, not just this one. I don't want to write a review about every single book in the series so I'll just write this one. If you don't know what I'm talking about go and read Eye of the Moonrat first! Be warned about spoilers about the whole story, not just about this book! **
This one is a filler if I ever saw one...
I'm so sad about how this story declined over the parts. I loved the first story arc, although even then, I started to see a slight decline in quality as I read the books. Nevertheless, as I said, I loved the first story arc, the first books hooked me in real fast. The world in this series is phenomenal, really really interesting and so vast that I believe it could support a huge amount of books to be written in. Yes, it could... but it doesn't, and this book, Sir Edge is the perfect example for why I'm saying this.
In the first story arc the author continually built the world, the characters, we had a constant sense of going forward in the events and lives of our main and secondary and even the tertiary characters. We had an engaging story line and a fantastic finale.
But as I said earlier, even then at the end of the arc it started to slow down so drastically that I almost lost interest. Of course we got our finale for the story line but other than that the books really didn't have much to go on. It was still good, don't misunderstand me, I'm just saying that compared to the first few books, for me the last two, two-and-the-half books were a bit of a disappointment, but still, good. For the first three books I'd give at least 4.5 star for all of them but at the end of the arc I wouldn't give more than (a generous) 4 stars, which is closer to 3.5.
In my opinion the main reason for this and the whole declining in quality is that there is just too many point of views and we lost Justan as a main character who we started to love and root for in the first place. I got invested in him, rooted for him, then he started to get less and less "screen time" and the focus shifted to secondary and other supporting characters. I admit some of them were pretty good and I enjoyed reading about them as much as about Justan, but the majority was just boring. Especially the antagonists' POV. They were good at the beginning but the author spent more and more time with them and they got real boring real fast, and then they weren't good in the beginning either (but this last part of my sentence is more about the second storyline).
So then, I had to leave this series for a few months otherwise I would have DNF-ed it right there and then. But a few weeks ago I picked the series up again to read the second story line.... and oh boy...
I have to state first that the second story line was still enjoyable! Here and there at least.. I understand that this storyline is not about Justan (and maybe Jhonate), but the characters that the author picked to expand on, just didn't have the deepness in them to carry this story for me. The sole exception from this is Fist, his line was good, but it got soiled by the others too, because theirs were so boring that by the end of the second arc I couldn't even enjoy Fist's POVs either. That and the dreaming, but I will talk about them in a bit.
Tarrah's line was, well, wasn't bad per se, but I wouldn't say it was too exciting either, it was a solid mediocre, and leave things there.
But the chapters about Arcon and Mellinda in the beginning then about the trollkin was a constant dread of mine, they were just plain bad. Every time I saw that the next chapter will be about them I groaned and tried to endure them and when I couldn't I just skimmed them. They rarely added anything to the story and even if they did it was written in a too expansive manner, they were just filler chapters. They were there to serve the sole purpose of having a bigger word count whilst cloaking them in "developing the story". And uhhh.. did we have a lot of these chapters...
Plus the second story arc transformed into a dream interpretation fest. I'm not kidding when I say, that everyone and their uncle started to have these extremely important dreams about the future, and we got to see them in the first row. And the dreams were almost identical with only just a slight change (khm.. Fist... khm..). Now try to imagine a scenario where you have to re-read the same thing over and over again and you have to find that one paragraph that changed... Yeah.. so intriguing.. I totally didn't fall asleep reading them on more than one occasion..
Add to this that generally the second story arc wasn't as exciting, deep or nuanced as the first. Far from it. But it wouldn't have been such a bad thing if we wouldn't have to read this for 6 books. Now, here, the world building and character development got to a so infuriatingly slow crawl, that I honestly only finished the story arc just to finish it and to see if at least Justan a Jhonate and maybe Fist gets a happily-ever-after or something so I can say that, yes their story got to a closure. Well they got one.. We just don't read almost anything about it because it happens off screen.......
So all in all the second story arc could have been written in 3 books tops, or if you really want to read about things that maybe feel good for you but don't add anything to the grand scheme of things, 4 books instead of the 6 we got.
For me the second story arc went from a solid 3.5 to a shaking 2.5 over the books, but I wouldn't think a 2 star rating unreasonable either.
And thus finally, we are here, at the start of the third story arc. At this point I was a bit excited about having Justan as the main character again, so maybe the measure of my disappointment is higher because of this. But man, this one was just a waste of time. After the last 3 or 4 books of boredom I thought that finally, FINALLY, the author realized that we are here for Justan and his bonded and to see them succeed in their various predicaments. And in a sense we got exactly that in this book, but it just lacked the excitement. It was just not enough anymore, or not not enough, more like these events felt like that they have a really low impact on the big picture, so you couldn't get excited about them.
Okay for all fairness I should state, that for me it was always a sore point how we didn't see almost anything about Justan's and Jhonate's relationship in past books. I don't mean that this should be a romantic novel, hell no. But we got to see other characters' developing relationships and life more than our supposedly main characters' life. I really like a fantasy book where there is a romantic sub-plot because it adds a feeling of completeness to the story for me.
Now, in this book, after all the boringness of the previous books I thought that finally we would see the main couple at last, and we would see their duo once again (after 6-7 books, depending on your opinion), we would see how they work together, live together, how they evolved in the last 16 years. But no, no no no. We are back at square one where if Jhonate and Justan wouldn't be married it wouldn't mean a thing. They are almost like two strangers, as far as the story goes.
AND at the end we get the totally anti-climactic finish of learning that the curse is far from being removed, their relationship is like as if the last 16 years didn't happen, they act the same as when they got together. Also, what is this curse? Why did we have to have this curse? My suspicion is that the author just didn't know how to handle a story where Jhonate and Justan have kids..
For some reason I can't even begin to fathom Gwyrtha got offed until the last chapter's last part. Justan went and developed a whopping 0.1% in character again, Deathclaw didn't have a change in character or anything else in who knows how long. And similar things could be said about Fist, Lenui and the other few characters we see in this book, too. Okay in the exception of Justan and Jhonate, everybody got to have a family in the years we jumped. Oh and apparently Jhonate is a seer now.. Yaay.. so exciting. Oh and I forgot, of course the curse could be lifted, of course, OF COURSE, but once again OF COURSE not here and now so their life could go somewhere, but in a later date, just keep posted. It would cost them the lives of their loved ones, or at least we get the premonition of it. I won't say that some important character won't die, it wouldn't be the first time that the author killed a seemingly important character (at least important in some ways), but the situation isn't exactly clear. First we are told that someone or several someones would have to be sacrificed from Justan's bonded/loved ones to lift the curse. And you would be a bit afraid now, wouldn't you? But then we are told that these someones are from the Big and Little People Tribe, and since almost everybody in Dremaldia are in the tribe now it doesn't seem to be so frightening. I don't think it is beyond the author to have him kill one of the main characters from Justan's circle but I'm not afraid too much. Although he is yet to kill a genuinely important character, so who knows. At least something would happen.
Add to all of this the fact that the whole story is about how Justan goes from point A to point B, during which happens almost nothing, but certainly not enough to warrant a whole book of 20-something chapters about it. If this book wouldn't have happened, we would be almost exactly in the same place where we left the second story arc, not counting that everybody else got a family. The story in this book adds so few things to the overall plot and world and events, that I couldn't feel anything but pure disappointment and a bit of sadness. Okay okay, the Dark Prophet is back, but honestly, who was surprised about it reading the series' title?
Mehh... This book is a 1.5 star for me.
And I can't even be excited about the next book since we know that the only reason we jumped 16 years in time is to see everybody else's kids be heroes while J and J gets nothing again and I don't mean only their relationship, but also their individual character development. I know it seems like my only problem is how Jhonate and Justan got benched and left there for books, and yeah, at this point I don't even care. YES, that IS my problem, I WANT TO READ ABOUT THEM. And before someone comments how we just got a whole book about Justan, my reply to them is that this boring, slow, chore-to-read, zero-impact story is not how I got to like this series in the first place and not what I would categorize as reading about them.
And I'm really angry about how this whole world got wasted on filler books and zero-impact events. I'm not sure I will pick up the next book, in fact I'm almost certain that I'll just cut my losses and leave, because seeing how the last story arc developed, we will have 4-5 more books in this story arc where we can read about everybody else and their kids and nothing about Justan and Jhonate, and maybe in the last book they will kill the Dark Prophet (although I wouldn't be so sure... Mellinda...) and maybe, just maybe the curse would be lifted aaaaand that's where the story arc would end. So again, we would see nothing about our supposedly main couple's life.
Probably after a few days with a cooler head I would have given at least half a star better rating but I finished the book last evening and the experience (or should I say the lack of it) is still fresh and I'm annoyed as hell.
That and the fact that I reviewed 12 or something books at once is also the reason why I couldn't concentrate on the positives of these books, but believe me when I say that in spite of what my review suggests, there are still a ton of positives in this story and I honestly enjoyed reading them for the most part. Just not these last few books or main part of these last few books so it got worse and worse for me. But still I would recommend this series to my friends. At least the first story arc, definitely. As for the rest, well if you really don't know what to read they have a lot of good aspects too but be prepared to gradually like them less and less. Or maybe it's only me, but judging by the dwindling numbers of ratings and reviews I'm not the only one who left this series. Such a shame, could have been so good.
Good job on finishing reading this review if you got here Reader, it sure was a long rant.
This one is a filler if I ever saw one...
I'm so sad about how this story declined over the parts. I loved the first story arc, although even then, I started to see a slight decline in quality as I read the books. Nevertheless, as I said, I loved the first story arc, the first books hooked me in real fast. The world in this series is phenomenal, really really interesting and so vast that I believe it could support a huge amount of books to be written in. Yes, it could... but it doesn't, and this book, Sir Edge is the perfect example for why I'm saying this.
In the first story arc the author continually built the world, the characters, we had a constant sense of going forward in the events and lives of our main and secondary and even the tertiary characters. We had an engaging story line and a fantastic finale.
But as I said earlier, even then at the end of the arc it started to slow down so drastically that I almost lost interest. Of course we got our finale for the story line but other than that the books really didn't have much to go on. It was still good, don't misunderstand me, I'm just saying that compared to the first few books, for me the last two, two-and-the-half books were a bit of a disappointment, but still, good. For the first three books I'd give at least 4.5 star for all of them but at the end of the arc I wouldn't give more than (a generous) 4 stars, which is closer to 3.5.
In my opinion the main reason for this and the whole declining in quality is that there is just too many point of views and we lost Justan as a main character who we started to love and root for in the first place. I got invested in him, rooted for him, then he started to get less and less "screen time" and the focus shifted to secondary and other supporting characters. I admit some of them were pretty good and I enjoyed reading about them as much as about Justan, but the majority was just boring. Especially the antagonists' POV. They were good at the beginning but the author spent more and more time with them and they got real boring real fast, and then they weren't good in the beginning either (but this last part of my sentence is more about the second storyline).
So then, I had to leave this series for a few months otherwise I would have DNF-ed it right there and then. But a few weeks ago I picked the series up again to read the second story line.... and oh boy...
I have to state first that the second story line was still enjoyable! Here and there at least.. I understand that this storyline is not about Justan (and maybe Jhonate), but the characters that the author picked to expand on, just didn't have the deepness in them to carry this story for me. The sole exception from this is Fist, his line was good, but it got soiled by the others too, because theirs were so boring that by the end of the second arc I couldn't even enjoy Fist's POVs either. That and the dreaming, but I will talk about them in a bit.
Tarrah's line was, well, wasn't bad per se, but I wouldn't say it was too exciting either, it was a solid mediocre, and leave things there.
But the chapters about Arcon and Mellinda in the beginning then about the trollkin was a constant dread of mine, they were just plain bad. Every time I saw that the next chapter will be about them I groaned and tried to endure them and when I couldn't I just skimmed them. They rarely added anything to the story and even if they did it was written in a too expansive manner, they were just filler chapters. They were there to serve the sole purpose of having a bigger word count whilst cloaking them in "developing the story". And uhhh.. did we have a lot of these chapters...
Plus the second story arc transformed into a dream interpretation fest. I'm not kidding when I say, that everyone and their uncle started to have these extremely important dreams about the future, and we got to see them in the first row. And the dreams were almost identical with only just a slight change (khm.. Fist... khm..). Now try to imagine a scenario where you have to re-read the same thing over and over again and you have to find that one paragraph that changed... Yeah.. so intriguing.. I totally didn't fall asleep reading them on more than one occasion..
Add to this that generally the second story arc wasn't as exciting, deep or nuanced as the first. Far from it. But it wouldn't have been such a bad thing if we wouldn't have to read this for 6 books. Now, here, the world building and character development got to a so infuriatingly slow crawl, that I honestly only finished the story arc just to finish it and to see if at least Justan a Jhonate and maybe Fist gets a happily-ever-after or something so I can say that, yes their story got to a closure. Well they got one.. We just don't read almost anything about it because it happens off screen.......
So all in all the second story arc could have been written in 3 books tops, or if you really want to read about things that maybe feel good for you but don't add anything to the grand scheme of things, 4 books instead of the 6 we got.
For me the second story arc went from a solid 3.5 to a shaking 2.5 over the books, but I wouldn't think a 2 star rating unreasonable either.
And thus finally, we are here, at the start of the third story arc. At this point I was a bit excited about having Justan as the main character again, so maybe the measure of my disappointment is higher because of this. But man, this one was just a waste of time. After the last 3 or 4 books of boredom I thought that finally, FINALLY, the author realized that we are here for Justan and his bonded and to see them succeed in their various predicaments. And in a sense we got exactly that in this book, but it just lacked the excitement. It was just not enough anymore, or not not enough, more like these events felt like that they have a really low impact on the big picture, so you couldn't get excited about them.
Okay for all fairness I should state, that for me it was always a sore point how we didn't see almost anything about Justan's and Jhonate's relationship in past books. I don't mean that this should be a romantic novel, hell no. But we got to see other characters' developing relationships and life more than our supposedly main characters' life. I really like a fantasy book where there is a romantic sub-plot because it adds a feeling of completeness to the story for me.
Now, in this book, after all the boringness of the previous books I thought that finally we would see the main couple at last, and we would see their duo once again (after 6-7 books, depending on your opinion), we would see how they work together, live together, how they evolved in the last 16 years. But no, no no no. We are back at square one where if Jhonate and Justan wouldn't be married it wouldn't mean a thing. They are almost like two strangers, as far as the story goes.
AND at the end we get the totally anti-climactic finish of learning that the curse is far from being removed, their relationship is like as if the last 16 years didn't happen, they act the same as when they got together. Also, what is this curse? Why did we have to have this curse? My suspicion is that the author just didn't know how to handle a story where Jhonate and Justan have kids..
For some reason I can't even begin to fathom Gwyrtha got offed until the last chapter's last part. Justan went and developed a whopping 0.1% in character again, Deathclaw didn't have a change in character or anything else in who knows how long. And similar things could be said about Fist, Lenui and the other few characters we see in this book, too. Okay in the exception of Justan and Jhonate, everybody got to have a family in the years we jumped. Oh and apparently Jhonate is a seer now.. Yaay.. so exciting. Oh and I forgot, of course the curse could be lifted, of course, OF COURSE, but once again OF COURSE not here and now so their life could go somewhere, but in a later date, just keep posted. It would cost them the lives of their loved ones, or at least we get the premonition of it. I won't say that some important character won't die, it wouldn't be the first time that the author killed a seemingly important character (at least important in some ways), but the situation isn't exactly clear. First we are told that someone or several someones would have to be sacrificed from Justan's bonded/loved ones to lift the curse. And you would be a bit afraid now, wouldn't you? But then we are told that these someones are from the Big and Little People Tribe, and since almost everybody in Dremaldia are in the tribe now it doesn't seem to be so frightening. I don't think it is beyond the author to have him kill one of the main characters from Justan's circle but I'm not afraid too much. Although he is yet to kill a genuinely important character, so who knows. At least something would happen.
Add to all of this the fact that the whole story is about how Justan goes from point A to point B, during which happens almost nothing, but certainly not enough to warrant a whole book of 20-something chapters about it. If this book wouldn't have happened, we would be almost exactly in the same place where we left the second story arc, not counting that everybody else got a family. The story in this book adds so few things to the overall plot and world and events, that I couldn't feel anything but pure disappointment and a bit of sadness. Okay okay, the Dark Prophet is back, but honestly, who was surprised about it reading the series' title?
Mehh... This book is a 1.5 star for me.
And I can't even be excited about the next book since we know that the only reason we jumped 16 years in time is to see everybody else's kids be heroes while J and J gets nothing again and I don't mean only their relationship, but also their individual character development. I know it seems like my only problem is how Jhonate and Justan got benched and left there for books, and yeah, at this point I don't even care. YES, that IS my problem, I WANT TO READ ABOUT THEM. And before someone comments how we just got a whole book about Justan, my reply to them is that this boring, slow, chore-to-read, zero-impact story is not how I got to like this series in the first place and not what I would categorize as reading about them.
And I'm really angry about how this whole world got wasted on filler books and zero-impact events. I'm not sure I will pick up the next book, in fact I'm almost certain that I'll just cut my losses and leave, because seeing how the last story arc developed, we will have 4-5 more books in this story arc where we can read about everybody else and their kids and nothing about Justan and Jhonate, and maybe in the last book they will kill the Dark Prophet (although I wouldn't be so sure... Mellinda...) and maybe, just maybe the curse would be lifted aaaaand that's where the story arc would end. So again, we would see nothing about our supposedly main couple's life.
Probably after a few days with a cooler head I would have given at least half a star better rating but I finished the book last evening and the experience (or should I say the lack of it) is still fresh and I'm annoyed as hell.
That and the fact that I reviewed 12 or something books at once is also the reason why I couldn't concentrate on the positives of these books, but believe me when I say that in spite of what my review suggests, there are still a ton of positives in this story and I honestly enjoyed reading them for the most part. Just not these last few books or main part of these last few books so it got worse and worse for me. But still I would recommend this series to my friends. At least the first story arc, definitely. As for the rest, well if you really don't know what to read they have a lot of good aspects too but be prepared to gradually like them less and less. Or maybe it's only me, but judging by the dwindling numbers of ratings and reviews I'm not the only one who left this series. Such a shame, could have been so good.
Good job on finishing reading this review if you got here Reader, it sure was a long rant.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 27, 2019
Just not for me
The first books were great, loved the story about one MC but then author expanded the perspective. It's where evil is so clever that the good can't keep up, that gets on the nerves, a damn cliff hanger after cliff hanger at this point.
The first books were great, loved the story about one MC but then author expanded the perspective. It's where evil is so clever that the good can't keep up, that gets on the nerves, a damn cliff hanger after cliff hanger at this point.
Read
May 11, 2020I love these Trevor Cooley stories. The plots are all exciting and the story is nice and tight, there are no loose ends that make the series seem weak or under-developed. I really enjoy the characters especially Sir Edge and the contrast between the heroes and the villains. A very enjoyable read!
February 22, 2022
The book itself is just as good as the rest of the bowl of souls books. My only complaint is the narrator for this books audio version is a different person than all of the rest of the other audio books. I got so used to the other person, it's weird to hear another person's interpretation of a character's voice.
July 27, 2021
The author tried to juggle way too many characters than he could handle. I am disappointed to see that the character that I was intrested in, doesn't really feel like the protagonist of the Bowl of Souls, people can only care about so many characters.
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