Synopsis:
“Always a meticulous planner, Darrak Hunter leads a dull life until his dreams become plagued with visions of a peculiar and distant world. Waking up to a brilliant purple sun looming ominously in the sky, Darrak is met by a mysterious violet-eyed sorcerer who whisks him away from the struggling Earth.
Thrown into the clutches of a foreign world where magic is reality and not all is as it seems, Darrak embarks on a journey where he is forced to come to terms with his past and do what he can to shape the future. Accompanied by a talented swordswoman, a prince, and a beautiful young sorceress, he must overcome cunning plots of treachery and betrayal to discover the strength to stand against a destructive black magic and an enemy who is a master at deception.” (Source: Goodreads)
Review:
One glance at The Lost Heir‘s cover is enough to excite any fantasy loving bookwyrm. Add in it’s synopsis? Well, let’s put it this way: I buckled in for the ride and went nowhere. It’s not often that I choose to drop a book. In the year since I began book blogging, only one of my reviews was a DNF. This book marks my second.
A quick perusal of The Lost Heir on Goodreads shows the book to have some rather stellar reviews since its publish date in 2013. This leaves me baffled and wondering whether or not I was reading the same book. Andi O’Connor is great when it comes to descriptions, but beyond that her voice seems largely passive. Additionally, there is so much exposition that it is distracting.
If that alone isn’t a letdown, then the characters we meet in the first several chapters certainly are. When I review a book, I usually spend a paragraph or two on its characters. This is where I praise or ridicule the roles within the book. Only, O’Connor introduces so many characters so early in the book that I cannot recall half of their names, let alone their purposes. Those that merit mention seem unsure of themselves. For instance, Princess Mionee appears as a young, adept sorceress. While seemingly random elements of the early pages receive plenty of backstory, she appears to simply exist. And she’s a villain… apparently? Whereas our presumed hero, Darrak Hunter, is a whiney, college wimp. And the other characters we meet early on? They fail to impress.
My first attempt at reading this book saw me through the five percent of it. The second attempt netted another six percent before I came to the conclusion that, no matter what the reviews say, this book isn’t for me. The premise of The Lost Heir is stellar; it’s a shame the book isn’t.
A special thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for providing with a copy of this book for the purpose of review.
Rating: 💀
