A New Book on the Market... (no, it's not mine... yet.)

So the first topic this week: Book reviews. (dun, dun, duh!)

The other day, while at K-mart, I found myself in my usual spot scanning the shelves of the book section. Nothing seemed that interesting...

Me: "erotica, erotica, vampires, erotica, vampire erotica... I'm just not that type of girl. Oh! Artemis Fowl! Shoot, I have all of those..."

That's when my eye fell on a new cover on the shelf: "Bran Hambric and the Farfield Curse." Intrigued, I picked it up and read the jacket...

Me: "Hmm... a fresh fantasy set in an 'almost modern type' setting. Ok, a boy who doesn't know he can use magic... yeah, yeah... The city doesn't allow magic; ok, so he's different. Wait a minute... his mother was a magical Criminal?! *flips the book open*

And, yeah, that's pretty much the way it happened. A few pages in I decided I liked it. It seemed to be a good, solid story. I was certainly intrigued. Finally finished reading small bits, I flipped to the back to read the author bio.

Me: "Kaleb Nation... uh-huh, uh-huh... ok, so he's young and he writes. Wait! He turned 20 in 2008? *mental check of age* OMG! He's my age! And... and he's published!!!" *swoons*

And the book was mine. I had to have it and about five minutes later I did. So far I'm into the second part (not second chapter) and I am absolutely hooked. It's pretty solid writing, and it's a fairly decent plot. Yes, the whole "boy can do magic and never knew it before" theme has been done before... a lot. But we read it anyway, don't we?

For pros on the book, I would have to say that Kaleb has good writing and certainly seems to know where he's going with the plot. His characters are interesting and sometimes eccentric, and his humor is witty, fast paced, and genuine. For this, I am definitely going to look into the second book when it finally comes out: Bran Hambric and the Specter Key. Kaleb also has a pretty spiffy website that is easily accessible and has good and accurate info.

For Cons, however, I would have to say that Bran's character has a lot of internal speculation (not that I wouldn't if I were him, and not that I and my characters don't struggle through internal speculation in my writings). The point is, there is almost too much of it, and I found myself skipping parts to get to the action.

That said, here's one more for pros... I didn't have to go far to find the action; the book is quite literally brimming with it!

So there you go. That's another $15.00 out of my pocket, and a new book on my book shelf that I probably don't need but went ahead and got anyway.

Has anyone else read a new book lately?