I absolutely love the cover. The book itself just wasn’t for me. I mostly had to skim finish it just to see if I could get into it. I had every intention of adding it to my collection if I loved it.

There are beautiful color illustrations throughout the book. I wonder if the physical book has the same

Anyway, the author did a fantastic job of adding a lot of information at the back of the book. I think it’s one of the most in depth I’ve seen, or paid attention to at any rate. So kudos to that.

A very long build up of an ensuing battle. The weapons were impressive. The backstabbing was never ending. The excitement didn’t work for me. When the battle finally happened, it wasn’t as much as I was expecting.

This book is seriously not talked about enough. First of all the cover art is gorgeous so props to the cover designer. Second of all the story telling the author does is brilliant! I think this is a debut novel? If so I'm very impressed by how solid the plot was. There's tone is well written character development as well.

This book is tough for me to rate because technically there was nothing wrong with it but it just didn't really work for me. I felt kind of lost and confused almost from the start as the story starts kind of in the middle of things (I actually had to double check that I wasn't reading a sequel without realizing).

I would say that one of the biggest strengths of the novel is the world building/setting. The author has created a unique world with interesting clans/factions and even though it's almost entirely Elves who populate the world they all have a unique feel to them. There's something familiar feeling in the world so I think high fantasy fans would enjoy that aspect for sure but as I mentioned it does still feel new. The author gives a lot of detail about the world which ends up turning into a double edged sword. The info is great for creating a rich, imaginative world but also kind of bogs down the story and has an impact on pacing so that the story itself sometimes feels slow. While I really did enjoy all the detail in the world, I wish the story would have moved along a little bit quicker.

While the story was interesting (I liked the world that the book takes place in) I didn't really care about the characters which made it hard for me to feel invested in the story. I think that combined with the sometimes awkward writing style/pacing made it hard for me to really get into the book. This book is clearly a labour of love and I am curious about where the story might go next so I'm tempted to try the next one but I'm currently on the fence.

Overall, I'd recommend this to anyone who loves high fantasy and is looking for a new world to get immersed in but if you're looking for a more casual read then this might not be for you.

This tale has a lot of prose but it's a really strong story. The main characters are elves, who are siblings. There's so much strong world building, and all the epic highs and lows are included in this story. It makes you really want to read the rest of the trilogy. It's a well paced read, you will not burn through it, but you also will not want to put it away and leave it.

Thanks to Net Galley for introducing me to this author and for my digital copy of this book. This review is my own and a positive review is never required.

"An Act of Faith" is a story that could have benefited from a tighter edit. The writing style really wasn't my cup of tea.

Follow refugee elves as they travel to the Lost Islands of their people. They are thrust into a war after escaping one of their own.

This is a very interesting beginning to the series. We are introduced to a new group of elves who are running from persecution and war. Each character is unique and well written.

The story itself is an interesting one. There are political schemes as well as those of war. I am glad I read the prequel novel first since it gives a bit more insight to the world and some characters.

My biggest issue is just how long and arduous each chapter is. There is so much information thrown at the reader that a few extra chapter breaks would be nice.

However, I am still interested in where this series is going and if our refugees will find happiness.

The cover and the drawings was very beautiful and stunning. But the story felt a little so and so, stuff happend but it was... not enough meat on the bone, the characters were boring...

Judging by an overall rating on Goodreads, I am going to voice an unpopular opinion. I have one word that sums up my experience with this thing, graphomania.

I was given a copy for free, in exchange for an honest review, so I tried really hard to read it. And trying really hard, I only made it to 30%. In a few months.

There are way too many words that don't do anything in particular in the story. There are way too many characters that don't differ one bit from each other and can be distinguished solely by their unpronounceable names. I didn't find any character development in there; or any personalities to begin with. All those elves look very blank and flat, and speak and act (if they even deem to) in a completely unrelatable way.

The elves are also prone to capitalizing Nouns in their Speech and Writing, not dissimilar to humble German Language of humans. However, unlike the human speech, Elves seem to favor some words over others and not all Nouns are honored with a capital Letter.

The prose on the whole is stilted and pompous. Reading it felt like clawing my way through a pile of ornate furniture.

Unfortunately I struggled to get through this. I feel the writing style is not for me. I love fantasy books but I know not all fantasy books work for me. I was not able to finish it. But I know it will work for others.

It‘s been a while since I read a book about elves so I decided to give this book a try.
Before I talk about the plot I want to comment the writing style. It‘s definitely the writing style many would connect with a high fantasy, very Tolkienesque, but this also means that it tends to be verbose, too descriptive and overly formal in the way the characters speak. It didn‘t resonate with me.
Now let‘s get to the plot!
The first few chapters were phenomenal, so epic and adventurous! I loved the sea setting and I came to care a great deal for the group of characters we were introduced to. The book was info dumpy a times but I could see from the very beginning that the author made a huge work in creating this world, so the problem is just that he had some problems presenting the world in more organic way. Unfortunately, the rest of the book didn‘t reach the same level, After the first chapters the pace decreased and the plot became almost non existent, nothing happened until the final battle and most of all we lost track of the first group of characters until the end. This last was the saddest thing for me because I din‘t care a lot about the other characters. I have to admit I skim read a lot of the second half of the book because I was soooo bored!
A little note about the elvin names: sometimes they sounded very similar so it was difficult at times to tell a character from the other, especially with the gods.
So a remarkable start, I wish the rest was at the same level!
I‘ll try reading the sequel. I‘m just a little worried because I read online this is the first of a 6 book series and I‘m not sure there‘s enough narrative material for that amount of books...

I can see the appeal for many fantasy lovers, but for ge, it was a miss. I kept putting the book down and picking anything back up. I just didn't no connect with it at all.

Thank you to the author C.A. Oliver, the publisher and NetGalley for providing me an ARC in exchange for my candid review.

First, I love fantasy/new world/sci-fi genres. I found this book extremely difficult to read and to follow. It started out with an epic sea adventure and then just got totally confusing. First, there are all kinds of groups of elves. Tons of them back in the "old world" and tons in the 'new world'. Some are green and some are blue. No problem. But then there are the mortal ones within those groups and the immortal ones called "high elves". Still fine. But then there all kinds of different clans. Getting confusing, but still okay. Then they all have similar names ending in the same descriptor. Kinda like naming everyone Smith and Jones. I was unable to follow who was who and found it tough to care. And then I found it difficult to find anyone that I really cared for.

I think that this book had some interesting bones, but definitely needing some much better editing.

A great Science fiction fantasy book. I highly recommend reading this book. Thank you to NetGalley for allowing me to read this book.

It doesnt support or open after I download the pdf version of it. It's also not showing in my shelf in netgalley and I cant open it to read Please look into the issue and if you can send me the pdf in my mail ID- taniagungunsarkar@gmail.com I cant read the book from here. Please look into the issue

I have attempted to read this several times over the last year I have had it. I pick up it up, read some pages, and find myself drifting to other books. It's not that the story is bad, I just can't seem to engage with it for some reason. The narrative seems to have all the high fantasy elements I love: elves with extremely complicated names, adventure, epic journey. But I just never can stick to reading it for some reason. Maybe some day it will be just the right book for me, but that is not in the foreseeable future right now.

I don’t read a lot of high fantasy , this was good! The characters are well developed and realistic .The book starts out in a promising manner but I find it a little bit slow for my taste!It was an interesting read!.

This was a middle-of-the-road read for me. While I liked a lot of aspects, there were some things I disliked, and overall, I just didn't feel strongly enough about the book to really warrant adding an in-depth review to the blog.

Blue elves and green elves and ocean voyages and immortal elves all kind of ran together in my head. I could not get into it. It may be appealing to another reader but it wasn't for me.

I love elves. I love pirates. I love fantasy novels, but this one was just too heavy-handed. It might have been easier to get into if the characters were better developed early on.