Day 1 of my #SPFBOX opening reads (Fantasy Faction). I’m happy to start with two books I thought were well enough put together to keep me turning the pages. Both have young female MCs who want more from their lives. I’m sure both will get more than they bargained for.
1. Shelby Elizabeth @ShelbyEBooks, Lady of Dragons
A girl watches her sister train to be a dragon knight, and dreams of being one herself on this YA fantasy that’s off to a fairly competent start.
A trial awaits our MC in the future to seen if she can even qualify to begin training to be a knight like her sister is. What that test is like, we don’t know yet, but it’s clearly a significant obstacle.
The wonder of dragons and the majesty and power of their flight is here, along with a nice, magical touch about the effect of the dragon on the water. Our MC can hardly look away. All her will and all her hopes and dreams are tied up in this.
The prose of this opening is serviceable. The details are nice, but they are not always clearly presented. It creates an effective scene, however, and doesn’t sit still for too long, inviting me to continue turning the pages.
The dialogue also feels slightly awkward and unnatural. It is largely expositional for the moment, and maybe that’s most of the problem. I don’t believe for a second, for instance, that the two girls we’re following haven’t discussed what type of dragon they’d like.
Nonetheless, there is a sunny, bright and breathless whimsy about this story that I’m enjoying. Our MCs character is already apparent to me. She’s a bit pessimistic and thinks too much, but she wants something very badly, and that makes for a great MC.
For the moment, this is a light and engaging read. There’s something fun about it, even wholesome. Will this be about our MC becoming the knight of her dream, or will it take a different turn? I’m interested to find out! I’m in!
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/181209722-lady-of-dragons-part-one
2. K Malady, If The Walls Fall
A college freshman with a head full of romance plots wakes up in a strange, medieval world after her advances on an older boy are gently rejected.
The prose in this next piece has been a highlight. The narrative voice of our 1st person MC is clear and competent, making this entry into the blog off highly readable. The dialogue feels natural enough, but it’s the narration that’s moving things along.
It gives us a good sense of our painfully inexperienced MC who is trying to seem like something more. She’s dressed as “the girl who would get a date” she tells us. Sadly, she doesn’t.
While our MC is fairly well described, the other character we initially meet is little more than a name. This is too bad, because it’s Halloween, months into the college term, and this lack of detail makes her infatuation with him seem shallow.
Of course, that may be the point! But it felt like a loss to me. His sideways confession that he is gay is also handled fairly perfunctorily. Our narration doesn’t comment on it. He leaves, our MC has a sudden, weird vision for some reason, and then she wakes up outside.
This transportation and subsequent realization that our MC is not in her dorm felt rushed to me, but the story keeps moving, and that’s always better than having nothing happen. (You’ll probably see my say that a lot in this thread.)
There are some good, and subtle character details being introduced here. Family strife. The loss of a family member. Some sense of conflict between conservative sexuality and a more progressive promiscuity.
These things fill out the beginning more than any sense of place or time, and, despite the suddenness of the isekai, they help get me invested enough in the character to keep reading.
I’m guessing this is a fantasy romance. It’s moving right along. I’m as lost as I could be as to how our MC ended up in medieval times (if that’s where she is). Will this be like the romances our MC reads? I’d like to know that much, so I’m in.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60226464-if-the-walls-fall
Day 2
3. Hiyodori, The Forest At The Heart of Her Mage
A woman finds the first draft of her deceased grandma’s will secreted in a chest of drawers that reveals a longing to be laid to rest in the dangerous forest she was forced to leave.
This is sublimely readable. It is clear, direct, & steadily developing. Character and setting reveal themselves sentence by sentence as I read in with mounting interest. This is a calm, quietly sad start.
Its focus and subtlety make me feel that I am in very good hands. The narrative tells us what we need, but alludes to a richly designed world full of mystery, danger, and wonder.
We see grandma painting pictures in her imagination on the concrete all at the retirement home where she lived with the other foresters, knowing only now the quiet desperation in her heart to be laid to rest in the forest and avoid the wearying cycle of reincarnation.
The juxtaposition of a living forest that is not there and the bare concrete wall that is speaks volumes. The invisible art in the mind of an old woman – the blank and lifeless concrete. The entirety of the first chapter is built around this image. This is art.
We feel our MCs sense of duty to her grandmother, and perhaps her own longing, without having to be told of it. It’s there on the page in every loving detail. The story, however quiet for the moment, leaps to life. It is exquisitely human.
The story also doesn’t linger. Our MCs mind is made up. She’ll risk a one time trek back into the Devouring Forest if her birth. She’ll need a body guard though. She’ll need a mage.
The first, short chapter ends, and my eyes are irresistibly drawn to the opening of chapter 2. That says it all. I’m already desperate to know more about, well, everything.
Who is our quiet MC really, and why have so many people tried to kill her (what a delicious detail to tease the reader with)? What are the dangers of this forest? What is the nature of magic in this world? What other secrets await us? I have to know. I’m in!
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/196853690-the-forest-at-the-heart-of-her-mage
Tom Mock 
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