Literary rating: ★½
Kick-butt quotient: ☆
I’ve made a terrible mistake. I don’t recall exactly at what point in reading this, I first came to that conclusion. It may have been the multi-page description of dress fitting. It could have been the lengthy shopping expedition. But it’s safe to say that, if I hadn’t been running behind on book reviews, this would almost certainly have been a Did Not Finish, and consigned to the recycle bin of oblivion. The main problem, if definitely not the only one, is the mismatch between the description and reality. The Amazon page describes it, rather breathlessly, as “An Epic Fantasy Romance Adventure.” Silly me, I expected this to mean about equal amounts of those elements, especially given the cover. A more accurate description would be, “A Romantic Epic Romance Fantasy ROMANCE Romance Adventure ROMANCE, with added ROMANCING”
It’s basically the story of four young women from New Zealand, who find themselves transported from Wellington to the mystical realm of Gar’nyse, after engaging in an occult ritual. Ok, it’s casting a love spell. There, dragons and all manner of other mystical beasts roam the lands. As well, naturally, as hunky young men: barely have they arrived, before they have encountered their soulmates, in the form of four incredibly handsome members of the Griffon Guard. And that’s where the book basically grinds to a halt, plot advancement being replaced by a slew of gazing deep into each other’s eyes moments. Oh, the quartet of interchangeable Barbie dolls, largely distinguishable only by their skills and hair-styles, are essential to the survival of the kingdom, naturally, due to their possessing “Elemental” abilities. After much training under Elena the Sorceress, they’ll go up against… the Wicked Witch of the West, or her blonde equivalent anyway.
For let’s be honest, she doesn’t show up until the very end, gatecrashing a palace ball (did I mention the dress fitting?) in Maleficent style. I had largely given up paying attention by that point, after slogging through two hundred or so pages of this nonsense. /gestures vaguely. Additionally, I found myself irrationally annoyed by the author’s inability to stick to a single point of view. The “I” in a paragraph was not necessarily the same as the “I” in the next one, and though the changes were usually obvious enough, I sometimes had to pause, then try and work out who was now the first person. It is an unnecessary chore made reading feel more like homework. But the main problem is, there simply isn’t enough going on to drive the narrative forward. I’d potentially have been interested to see how the four heroines survived as “strangers in a strange land”. Instead, as soon as the Griffon Guard show up, everything becomes too damn easy for them, and virtually the only challenges faced the rest of the way are ones of the heart. A very, very hard pass.
Author: Nicole MacDonald
Publisher: Little Leo Reads, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
Book 1 of 3 in the Birthright series.