IT’S NEARLY CHRISTMAS!!!!
For me, this roughly translates as ‘it’s nearly time for days and days of free time to try and read as many books as possible’. From a very young age, any question of ‘what do you want for christmas?’ was answered with a list of the latest books I wanted (usually Star Wars, much to the bemusement of my over-70-year-old Nanna). Christmas Day always ended with me curled up in an armchair, usually managing to finish at least one book by the end of the day – absolute bliss!
This weekend, I thought I’d get myself into the Christmas spirit by starting a new fantasy trilogy. After much searching, I settled on Dreamwalker: The Ballad of Sir Benfro book one by JD Oswald.
An enjoyable book, it has everything you could hope for in a fantasy novel: magic, dragons, and a power-hungry bad guy. It’s fairly standard, as fantasy fiction goes – and that is its weakness. It’s very readable, the characters are likeable or hate-able, depending on their role and I like the fact that the dragons are different to the usual fire breathing mega-beasts (although the author still went with the ‘wise and noble’ stereotype), but it’s not
I can’t say that I’m going to rush to read the next two in the series – it didn’t quite have that something special that makes me want to read compulsively until I run out of books – but it is good enough that I finished it within a few days, despite having a busy weekend visiting family, and I will read it the sequels at some point. It give it 3.5 out of 5 stars.
In the meantime my quest for something addictive that will help me to re-capture that magical feeling of having a stack of new books and the luxury to work my way through them will have to start again. What are your all-time favourite books – the ones that even after about 6 readings later, evey social occasion or (even worse) work day is an irritating distraction delaying your return to your beloved characters?
Not Another Fiery Redhead 