Spectrum Blade

Spectrum Legacy #1

by Beth Alvarez

On the day of the Spring Choosing, when the king’s army selects its new recruits, Zaide stood ready to answer the call to arms.

Instead, he was pulled from the ranks to become a mage’s apprentice, despite bearing no magic in his blood.

One year later, with Zaide past the age of selection, the scholar’s life he never wanted is shattered when his village is razed by the monsters magic should have held at bay. As the Elder’s apprentice, his task is clear. He must seek an artifact in the forest’s temple and restore the power that protects his home—a power he can never touch alone.

But the temple is not what it seems, and his mission is complicated when he encounters a mysterious girl in the forest who bears a quest of her own: claim the same artifact, and destroy the dark forces that threaten her homeland once and for all.

Spectrum Blade is the first book in an all-new epic fantasy series filled with quest-driven adventure, intense action, and ancient mysteries that leave you wanting more.

Genres: Fantasy

442 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 30, 2021

About the author

Award-winning author Beth Alvarez lives in Memphis, Tennessee, along with her husband, daughter, and a very mean cat.

Once a visual arts major, she has worked as a freelance graphic designer. Against all advice, she makes her own book covers.

Reading The Hobbit at 8 led Beth to fall in love with fantasy at an early age. She later developed a love for vampires and the supernatural, which is unsurprising, given she never outgrew the goth phase.

In her free time, Beth enjoys drawing, hitting the road in her beloved Mustang, sipping tea, sewing for her Asian ball-jointed dolls, and making her prior-Marine husband spar in the kitchen for sake of writing more convincing combat scenes.

Reviews

[Aryana Danyluk · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was so freaking good I cannot. Zaide is such an amazing character and I love how he kept pushig and preserving to help the Princess, aka Lark my bbg, his family, and his village. The duo of the two is just peak and the similarities to The Legend of Zelda is beautiful. 8 year old me would be so happy now that I found this series

[Kelsey Grote · Rating 4 out of 5]

i was promised a book that felt like Zelda and it delivered. a good easy read. my only complaint is sometimes Lark really annoyed me, but i think that was the point. it sets them both up for wonderful character development, hopefully the author sees it through.

[Camille · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5⭐
I bought this on impulse after seeing the author's self-promo video - "I wanted a book that felt like playing Breath of the Wild, so I wrote it." I, too, am always searching for a book that feels like that. And while this book definitely had a video game / fanfiction feel, it didn't have that atmospheric, open, melancholy vibe. Lots of telling-not-showing, and WAY too much dialogue to hit that vibe. This book was absolutely okay, fun for Zelda lovers, but with more talking. So much talking.

[Daniel M · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fun adventure with great characters, well written dialogue and some funny moments. Can’t wait to read the next one!

[GoosePicnic · Rating 3 out of 5]

I bought this book because it was marketed as having Legend of Zelda vibes and it definitely hit that mark. I think overall it was an enjoyable read, but I do think the zelda-ness was too heavy handed. I thought the zelda influences were fun at first, but it got to a point where I was sitting there like “that’s a zora, that’s the master sword, that’s Ganon” etc and it definitely broke my immersion to the point where I felt more like I was reading “Zelda lore with the names changed”.

Don’t get me wrong, I love a good Zelda vibe, but I do feel like this author sat down to write this with the intention of it being exactly that, rather than taking the time to build a more unique world that carries more subtle Zelda influences. There’s a marked difference between having the overall vibe of a piece of media versus mimicking it.

So tl;dr i thoroughly enjoyed the read but i have my critiques as well haha

[Gryphon_ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Picked this up on a whim from an Instragram ad claiming to be a Zelda-esque adventure. It became obvious the more I read.

*Spoilers Below*

A decently fun adventure with some memorable moments. Zaide never really gets himself into any life threatening situations and is constantly being lead around by characters who seem to know exactly where to go. There were no real struggles on his first few adventures. Lark was far too much of a brat and "do it cause I'm the princess and I say so" for me to enjoy the conversations between the two. The other characters felt more memorable than she was.

Here's to hoping the next books in the series are better and this was just a slow start.

[Will Freeman · Rating 4 out of 5]

really 3 and a half but ok um I liked it very The Legend of Zelda with a clear clear inspiration from those games but I personally love the games so I was in to it um kinda slow but thats ok so are the games so I respect that decision. but yeah I liked it

[Kayla Seavey · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was really whimsy and as I was reading, I was picking up the very clear references to the Zelda games it’s based off of (ex: Zaide being left handed, magical flute like instrument, etc) very Ocarina of Time coded. Also it was easy to read. I’m a fairly new reader and I finished it in a month. (Didn’t start logging my progress until about half way through)

[Kat Denvir · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had high hopes for this book - and to be fair, that's because it was marketed to me on Tiktok as strongly influenced by the Legend of Zelda, which it is. It's plainly obvious to any Zelda fans where the Zora and the Gerudo and the Hylians are in this book and the series "beats" being present in the 'quests'.

And yet, this was just fine. I thought Zaide and Lark were pretty weakly written honestly. I know a lot of criticism of the Zelda series is that Zelda has very little personality but with Lark, we get flashes of different reactions that don't seem rooted in anything. We don't see any bonding, or something to establish a relationship between these two.

So I was unfortunately underwhelmed by this. I had debated reading the next instalment in the series but this is the first book of six and I struggled with it, which I didn't feel would be improved by continuing on with the series.

[Linda]

I think it says enough that it took me four months to finish this.
I liked a lot of the side characters though!