The Legend of Finndragon’s Curse (Tales of Finndragon, #1) by Richie Earl

4 Stars

I had a tough call rating this book. I had a 3.5 in mind the whole way through, but by the time I had read the last 3 chapters they gave the book a boost for the final half of that elusive star (or butterfly!)

So, first off can I say thank you Richie. I was given this book in return for my honest opinion and an honest opinion is what i will provide!

The blurb: Three children racing against time, desperately searching for their missing father.
A medieval kingdom cursed by an evil wizard.
An ancient legend beneath our very feet.
The Legend of Finndragon’s Curse is the first book in a unique, two book fantasy adventure series and is a fast paced, engaging and thrilling page turner. The story races along with plenty of twists and turns as it heads for the prophesized confrontation between the children and the evil Finndragon himself.
Combining wizardry and magic with modern technology and containing magical animals and terrible demons, The Legend of Finndragon’s Curse is a rollercoaster of emotions that will make you laugh out loud and then fight to hold back the tears, as the children race against time to rescue their father. In doing so they have to kill Finndragon and put an end to the dreadful curse.
A young adult adventure that is sure to be enjoyed by all ages.

The story started well, the author jumped strait in with the nitty gritty, introducing the main three charaters of the tale – Emma, Megan and Scott. However, probably my biggest critisism is with these first few chapters. When we finally start getting a feel for the story and it starts kicking off we would suddenly have a charater bio thrown in. I found these very out of place and interuppted the pace somewhat. I feel this could have been integtrated at a slight later stage so it fits in better with the story.

Also, another observation i had was surrounding ‘Dad’. He had no name till we were quite far into the tale. I found this quite strange as everyone else was introduced and crammed in quite early on.

I love that the author has chosen to write the characters in a very believable manner. No overbearing characters and the children displayed typical sybling rivalry, I thought this was wonderful as it added a great touch of reality to the story. At no point did I want to strangle any of them! There was also a great sence of emotion and comradery displayed by all of the characters, it really made you want to root for them and cheer them on!

I will say that there were lulls in the pace, there was alot of unessesary chatter and times when not much was going on. I think maybe this could have been summarised more rather then going for the step by step account of everyones activities. I would have also liked of seen more substance. It was very A-B and I think the spaces inbetween could have been filled better, I just felt like I was being taken on a long trek some of the time. Like when your traveling accross a long straight road, its nice to sometimes stop and break it up a little bit with something different.

All in all this was a great tale. I would make some changes and shorten it somewhat, however the story was awesome and kept me reading to the end. I would recommend this to maybe a younger age group than mine.

Whats that? You want to buy a copy? Look no further!! :

Amazon.co.uk: The Legend of Finndragon’s Curse
Amazon.com: The Legend of Finndragon’s Curse

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