Friday, December 25, 2015

Book Review: The Watchers: Knight of Light

I was recently offered the opportunity to review an electronic copy of The Watchers: Knight of Light by Deidra Eden.  Generally, I'm not a fan of electronic copies of books but we must all adapt to the ways of the time.  I received the .mobi file so I could read on the Amazon Kindle app on my phone.  I'm sure it wasn't just my copy of the file but any time the line ended in a hyphenated word that was continued on the next line, I seemed to lose several lines by the time I flipped to the next page.  Technical difficulties aside, I'm sure I didn't miss much.

From the publisher:

All the training in Heaven couldn't prepare me for the war on earth, nor for the love, loss, or loneliness humans feel. There are things worse than death, and every last one of them is hunting people like us. Even though we all feel human at times, we must remember, we are not them, we are their watchers.

In England, 1270 A.D., Auriella flees her village after being accused of witchcraft. Pursued by nightmarish creatures, she struggles to accept the truth about her humanity. Filled with fairies, dwarves, pixies, dragons, demons, and monsters, Knight of Light is an enthralling tale that will capture the imaginations of readers young and old.


I really liked the author's take on medieval England.  Nobility was referenced and signs of the times were more than evident. The characters were generally likable.  Auriella had an interesting character development.  She had no issue accepting that she was not human or that her life was about to drastically change.  In that way, she was a very immature teenage girl.  Her dwarf and pixie traveling companions were also quite pleasant even if they weren't always easy to understand.

I didn't love the way the author jumped from modern English to olde English regularly as with illustrating a conversation between the dwarf and the girl or the pixie and a human.  One character would talk like the person next to you and the other came straight out of a fairy tale.  The lack of consistency was frustrating.  I also found that getting a clear idea of the timeline was hard.  While the story always ran forward, there wasn't clear indication of if we moved to several days later from one paragraph to the next or if it was only the next day.

Honestly, I wouldn't read this one again.  It wasn't my favorite.  Were someone to request of me a recommendation of a book featuring dragons, elves, etc, I'd probably point them to Eragon or Lord of the Rings.  It's not to say it's unlikable-- it just wasn't for me personally even though I do enjoy the genre.

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this e-book in exchange for my honest opinion.  All opinions expressed here are mine.

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