It’s Tuesday and whilst this isn’t a book with ghosts and ghouls, it does have dragons and elves, which I think makes it Halloween-y enough to be on theme for this week. And it was definitely the book that I have the most to say about of the ones that I read last week!
Sir Cameron is *technically* a knight, but he’s spent his whole career turning up just after the battle has happened and avoiding any chance that he might get killed, after all he’s just too handsome to die right? The battle against the mad sorcerer Merulo has been going on for years but a new prophecy has just been handed down by the church and it’s bad news for Sir Cameron: the only way to defeat Merulo is for Cameron to die. He’s (understandably) not keen on that idea, so runs away to throw himself on the mercy of the only person who doesn’t want him dead: Merulo. Merulo is less than pleased with this development: Cameron is vain, spoilt and attention seeking, but turning him into a vulture is entertaining. This is just the start of a voyage of discovery for Cameron but will he make it through alive? And will Merulo – because Cameron is getting strangely invested in the sorcerer’s survival…
I cannot adequately describe how bonkers this book is. Cameron getting turned into a vulture is only a small portion of the madness. It is totally, totally ridiculous and isn’t taking itself too seriously. It opens really strongly, and although I don’t think it quite carries through that promise, it’s still a fun read. It’s got a concussed elf as a (vengeful) side character and it keeps adding new twists and turns. And I think that’s where the problem is: it’s trying to do too much – the Amazon blurb includes the phrase “genre-bending” which doesn’t even begin to cover it really and it means it doesn’t quite do everything (anything?) as satisfyingly as you would like. I wasn’t sure how it was going to manage to resolve everything satisfactorily and I definitely didn’t expect how it did end, but it was a page turning way to pass some time on a wet and windy weekend.
I bought this one at Mr B’s Emporium so it is in some shops at least (and hasn’t spent too long on the pile in the grand scheme of things) but it’s also on Kindle and Kobo although I would wait for a price drop given the issues that I mention above – and the fact that is has really quite mixed reviews on Goodreads which suggest that other people had a bit less tolerance for it than I did! It has got a great cover though.
Happy Reading!
