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A fronte praecipitium a tergo lupi. (In front of you, a precipice. Behind you, wolves.)

Tuesday, July 29, 2014

ELIAS OF ELDERBERRY Review

Today I'm reviewing a book by my good friend Theresa Sneed called ELIAS OF ELDERBERRY.

This is an allegory of life; before, during, and after this existence, in my opinion. Instead of pre-Earth humans awaiting a long-anticipated turn to go down and get their fleshy envelope, we have fairies taking on human form. We have the wizards of a special family caught up in an epic battle between good and evil in a bid to save humanity from the clutches of Sirusas, who will stop at nothing to possess the power he craves. He's already got their big brother locked away. Those wizards are having to learn the ropes (just as we are in this book) because of spells which have caused them to forget all to save their lives until they were ready to defend themselves.

The story? A strange boy at Elias' school hands him a scroll which turns out to be very powerful and magical. He's all set to ask for his own baby dragon and a spate of other wacky wishes, when he gets zapped to a magical castle, only to find out he has not only a brother, but three or four, plus a grandfather older than dinosaurs and a whole bunch of new fairy friends. Not only that, but he's inherited his own powers...and a very powerful enemy.

I enjoyed this take on the whole life-on-earth spectrum. The action sizzled and the story sparkled. Great twists!

At times the book got a little confusing as the main characters tried to navigate through the pitfalls of their learning process. I'm sure those characters would agree that they spent most of their time being utterly discombobulated. And the ending was rather abrupt--quite the cliffhanger. Also I was confused about the lack of curiosity about family members (I thought they once mentioned a sister but never heard another peep about her. We never heard much at all about their parents either. I thought that tidbit sort of wretched. I personally would have asked immediately about my mother, father, and siblings as soon as I knew I had some sort of family, and not stopped asking until they'd told me everything about them.)

There were zero nasty words.
Zilch on the sexy scale.
Some sword pokes and explosions.
A teacup of death.
A smidgeon of rebirth.
Lovely magical fu.
Sweet gadget fu.
Dastardly villain fu.
And a possible prodigal son.

ELIAS OF ELDERBERRY is a romp. You can purchase it here.

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