SimplyMaggies

“In the land torn apart by civil war, pestilence, and shaky alliances, a man branded traitor may be the world’s only hope…” reads the back cover of the book, thus catching your attention long enough to skim through the short summary of what the story entails. And you’re caught in the world of sorceress, princes, monks (who are all  but simple), and magical creatures (all but elusive to the human eye) that walk the earth.

Thus, you meet  Valen—the rebellious son of a long line of pureblood cartographers and diviners, who wants nothing to do with neither his family nor his foretold destiny. When barely alive Valen finds his way to a monastery hoping for a sanctuary to survive the coming winter, he soon finds himself in the middle of a struggle between forces beyond his comprehension, all seeking answers to unlock the mysteries of the coming dark age. To save his country and his unexpected friends Valen must face his daunting past and find answers to the questions he’d rather not ask.

“Flesh and Spirit” is more than a fantasy novel. It reminds me of the Tolkien trilogy with its own world and creatures that exists only in the pages of the book. The story is perfectly written in a beautiful language that is a treat in itself (as always a pleasure to read something that challenges you as much as entertains) and the events are masterfully woven into the pages so to engross the reader from the very first page to the very last, leaving you gasping and stunned.

This novel is a first part of a two-volume series and the conclusion of “Flesh and Spirit” comes much too soon and leaves the reader bewildered, heart pounding, wishing for more…

So if you want an incredible adventure into the world of magic, gods and mystical creatures, pick up a copy of Carol Berg’s novel but makes sure that you’ll have an easy access to part two to this remarkable story or you’ll be left searching in all possible places for “Breath and Bone” to continue reading about Valen’s quest (just like I am…)

This is the first novel in a series of books introducing Sookie Stackhouse, a small-town waitress in Louisiana, who has a gift (or a curse, depending how one looks at it) for reading people’s minds. This ability prevents her from forming any type of close relationship (forget sex) with anyone so she mostly keeps to herself. Until one night a vampire enters the bar where she works. He’s tall, dark and handsome and, bets of all, Sookie cannot hear his thoughts. A perfect man she’s been waiting for… But Bill has a bad reputation for hanging around with a wrong crowd of creepy and violent vampires and when murders start occurring, Sookie fears, she’s the next victim…

And thus the story begins… Unfortunately, it is yet another novel where a vampire falls for a girl and a girl falls for a vampire. Quite predictable, to be honest. Although the story may have an element of novelty in it, it is terribly written with simple sentences and basic vocabulary on the fourth grade level, which makes reading it somewhat annoying. Moreover, it really doesn’t do the story any justice. Instead of speeding the flow of the narration (as it would normally be the case), it disrupts it. It reminds me of walking on the gravel road barefoot and constantly stumbling on the rocks. Not a pleasant experience, now is it?

Furthermore, not only does it take place in a small, middle-of-nowhere town in Louisiana, it seeps the southernism from every word and every page. Thus, instead of giving the vampire story a reality twist (as I hope was the author’s intention), it takes away the glamour usually accompanying any narrative featuring a vampire as a main character. And without it, it simply stumbles from page to page trying to tell us a tale of supernatural in the back woods of Louisiana. Ugh!

I have finished… Only, the end came far too soon. So I have put the saga away and as much as I’d like to just go back to normal (which means not thinking about the book or its characters at all), as I’m sure my husband and friends would greatly appreciate, I do miss being absolutely engrossed in this fantasy world where myth and magic mix so well with reality. And where absolutely anything is possible…

As for the “Twilight” saga, the fourth ( and the last) novel entitled “Breaking Dawn” was by far my favorite one, even though I didn’t think I was going to like it with the various perspectives introduced here. However, in the end it all made perfect sense and I really cannot imagine a better and more fitting way to describe the events that transpired in the last part of the saga.

Despite my falling in love with the realm of Bella and Edward, I am left frustrated and hungry for more. To satiate my immense curiosity, I searched the internet for the unfortunately unfinished novel, “Midnight Sun”, which takes us back to the beginning when Edward’s path crossed Bella’s. And here’s the twist—“Midnight Sun” tells the same story but from Edward’s perspective and thus makes it totally different (what, with his inhuman nature and the extra abilities) and a supplement, in a way, to the one Bella tells us in “Twilight’. So we get a whole new story. One that is absolutely phenomenal!

It is such as shame that Stephenie Meyer never got a chance to finish it (perhaps she had a plan to write all four novels from Edward’s perspective… Now, that would’ve been something! But we’ll never know, now will we?). And this is why I am left unsatisfied. Because the eleven chapters of “Midnight Sun” are the best chapters of the whole saga…