Shadows: Book of Aleth, Part One

Seth's Thoughts:
Shadows started out fairly stereotypical to anyone who has ever read a medieval fantasy book. It did not get much better from there. I'm not saying it was a bad book. I'm not saying it was good. The characters were strongly written. There wasn't any lagging in the story. It flowed fairly nicely. I just felt underwhelmed by it as I felt I have read it half a dozen times in the past already.

Seth gives Shadows: 3/5.

Shadows: Book Of Aleth Is a very intense, mystifying book. The author has you able to picture the world he has created in detail and has also given you the ability to visualize what the characters look like to a T. Mr. Duncan really keeps you on your toes while he throws a ton of twists and proverbial turns at you and you love it. He also brings to your awareness that not all things are as it seems. Like good isn't always good or bad isn't always bad - isn't that the way it truly is though? Evil disguises itself as good like as far back as in the Garden and continues to today. The author does a great job keeping you captivated and enthralled the whole time - what a journey.

Its always hard with books in this genre to not compare them to Tolkien's world in the Lord of the Rings even though you try your best not to!
And the same goes for reviewing them!
Its a huge cliche to say "If you loved Tolkien's Lord of the Rings then you will enjoy this book"
But that is what I want to write!!
The action a little slow going in the first half of the novel but once the Dwarves came into it it really gets going.
Very enjoyable read and i will definitely be reading the rest in the series!

My thanks to NetGalley and Harbourlight Books Pelican Book Group for an eARC copy of this book to read and review.

Meh, got 30% of the way into this book and realized that 1) there was a gapping plot hole that had to be there in order for the book to go the way it was going and 2) it just wasn't grabbing me enough to want to follow the book to where it was going.

The word usage was not quite right in places, it was somewhat ponderous and heavy feeling and the book came across as thinking it was important and what was happening was deep and I just wasn't feeling it. It was telling me it was important and deep, but it wasn't convincing me of it.

Also, if you are commanding a military group and your orders to find a thief and retrieve what he stole, do you allow your unit to burn down the cottage the thief is in and once the fire is out, just leave the cottage without leaving behind a guard or going into the ruins to try to find the body and see if any of the stolen item remains to bring back to your leader?

What do you think the MC did? Yup, abandoned the cottage without attempting to retrieve the body or the stolen artifact, so when he went back in the morning, the item was re-stolen! Now he needs to track it down AGAIN. Sigh.

Not a bad book, if you like fantasy and the whole "quest to find the One Object that can bring balance to the Force/Save or Destroy the World, depending on who holds it" random object. 3 stars because I didn't hate it and I can see others enjoying it, but it wasn't quite for me.