Rating: WARTY!
This advance review copy novel was a DNF for me. It started out promisingly, a fantasy romp and a quest, but there was a truly oddball mixture of modern English and medieval which kept tripping me up, and taking me out of suspension of disbelief. I'm not a fan of stories where the author tries to write them in Chaucerian English, so I don't mind a bit of modern idiom here and there, but when it's a mix of both ancient and too modern, it's really a jolt.
One minute they would be saying, 'tis (but without the apostrophe) and the next they would be saying 'butthole' which made me feel like I was reading a juvenile toilet-humor story for which I have no time. In short order I was reading terms like "All righty then" and "Crack of dawn" along with words like 'Busboy' (in a tavern!). It didn't work. I think the biggest problem was the level at which it was written - it felt to me like middle-grade whereas the characters felt like young adults, so it was mismatched there, too.
When the wood sprites showed up, my interest perked up a bit because I thought the story might be improving, but their humor began to grate, and they were gone pretty quickly. I didn't know whether to feel relieved that none of them joined the quest, so I didn't have to deal with their inane pranks anymore, or saddened because they had brought a spark to a story which badly needed one. It had already begun to set like drying clay.
There were moments of unintended humor like when one character says to another, "You're a Druid Harry" which made me feel like I was reading Harry Potter again, and not in a good way. This was a fantasy, yet there was a heavy coating of Christianity overlaid on it, which struck me as out of place for this particular story, as did a thumbscrew which "goes crackle snap pop." Seriously?
One of the characters but "Coal on her eyes" I doubt it. Kohl maybe, but coal? I had to quit reading this because it just wasn't working. I can't take a story seriously which doesn't even take itself seriously, and I can't recommend this one.
