Author: Angela Myron
Publisher: Patchwork Press
Rating: WORTHY!
DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley. I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration for this review.
This is a novel which owes a lot to Harry Potter, so if you liked those books - the early ones in the series specifically, then you will love this one. I liked it very much, although it's a bit young for me. It's aimed at middle-graders, or pre-young adults as I call 'em, bless their little cotton wands....
The story centers on 11-year-old Ennara Gaern, who was born a chosen one - she had a dragon tattoo forcibly stenciled onto her hand (shades of Harry Potter's lightning bolt mark!), and has been trained throughout her life by her aunt to use magic. One night when trying to bring the cow back into the barn on the farm where she lives with mom and dad, she finds herself stalked by a shadespawn - a creepy night creature, once human, which sucks the life out of the living if it can get 'em. Shades of dementors!
Before she knows it, Ennara is on a mission with wizard Tork, leaving her family behind and leaving her village for the first time ever. She's pursued by lifelong friend Kithe Fontaine, who mistakenly thinks she's been kidnapped, so he joins the party, and soon they're joined by Gevin and a sea-cat named Smoos. The three-some are left at a loose end when Tork is overpowered by magic, and they must continue the mission - to visit the sunken city, find the corpse of the Dark Druid, and retrieve the magical Sword of Gisilfrid which will end the Shadespawn curse - without his help.
It turns out that this is stuff and nonsense because it's Ennara who ends the curse, not the sword - although the sword helps, and perhaps she would never have been able to do what she did had she not made that journey and learned to work with her friends, new and old.
This novel was rather simplistic and deus ex machina for my taste, but despite it being a but young for me, it was solidly written, entertaining, and within its own world, realistic, so I have no problem recommending it for the age-group for which it was intended, and I moved right on to review the sequel, Ennara and the Book of Shadows.
