This month was another self published book! The book I read was "The Thirteeth Hour" by Joshua Blum. (All of the links to buy and Joshua's pages will be down below) I first came into contact with Joshua when I was paired with him for a book blog tour. He posted about me and my books, and while perusing his site I decided to order a copy of his book!
The description from Amazon:
When a boy falls asleep while reciting number facts in math class, he is
teleported into a magical medieval world reminiscent of a 1980s fantasy
movie, where flying dragons searching for gold raze cities to the
ground with crimson fire, vengeful wizards weave terrifying spells, and
even brave warriors wearing leopard-skinned underwear are given a run
for their money.
In the 1st volume of this epic fantasy series, Logan has grown into a
young man and must leave his sleepy village to become a soldier in the
Imperial Army. It does not take long for the King’s wizards to see
Logan’s potential, and he is selected to be specially trained as an
Imperial Ranger for a mysterious quest to find the secret to eternal
life. When he is surprisingly reunited with his childhood friend,
Aurora, they set off on an adventure of a lifetime.
And so begins The Thirteenth Hour, an illustrated fantasy
novel about dreams and wishes, wild hearts, and the quest to find the
unsung hero that lies in all young men and women.
The description really caught my attention. When I ordered this from Joshua, he even sent a magnet as well as a book mark. Both include the art depicting scenes from the book that he drew himself! I was really impressed with the artwork throughout the story. Throughout the entire book I was so impressed by the time and dedication that was clearly put into this book. A lot of effort was put into this to make it one cohesive unit, and to have such unique features such as artwork, and poems was a treat for me. Just on that alone, this book deserves a 5 out of 5 stars.
The story line was very interesting. The reluctant hero is forced to join in a quest to find the secret to eternal life. (Though sometimes I felt that he just went with "the flow" and didn't really care what happened) I liked that he wasn't perfect. In fact he was far from it. He wasn't particularly skilled at anything. One could almost describe him at under average for much of the army training. But what he lacks in skills, he makes up for in determination. This kid has heart!
It actually took me almost halfway through to "get into" the book. It was definitely a slow start for me. A few things that did not help with the readability were the longer flashbacks that Logan has throughout the book. Also to denote different POV's and character voices, the words of the text shift color. This I found distracting, and instead of continuing to read to see who was speaking I was constantly flipping to the beginning of the book for the legend. Also, sometimes the language of the book jarred me out of the story. The swearing almost always seemed not only out of place, but unnecessary.
This book is set in what seems to be a medieval world complete with castles, kings, and horses as the main mode of transportation. But when Logan gets to training, he is essentially trained in Eastern Martial arts. Partway into the story Logan even obtains a hover board. They also talk about and use bottled water, know about martinis and mixed drinks, use note cards for a speech, used the phrase "the bee's knees", had winter jackets, don't know what coffee is but understands what a rocket is, had caricature paintings, used bubble gum, and had a box of salted crackers.
The writing was well done, with minimal errors, and all of the paintings were formatted and well placed. If you're looking for a story to whisk you away, look no further!
I give this story a solid 3 out of 5 stars.
http://www.amazon.com/Thirteenth-Hour-Illustrated-Fairytale-Fantasy-ebook/dp/B00RFHG6WW/ref=sr_1_sc_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1459731113&sr=8-3-spell&keywords=the+thirthteenth++hour
http://www.amazon.com/Joshua-Blum/e/B00RFTLU5S/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1459734685&sr=8-1
https://13thhr.wordpress.com/
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