The Bookworm's Feast

“First thing you learn wandering the long roads, kid. Everyone thinks they’re the hero of their own story.”

Although the storyline is pretty dark, this was quite a fun read. I went in with zero expectations, hell, I didn’t even read the blurb. The cover drew me in and I’d heard it was meant to be pretty fun. As I’ve said, I agree with that, but I didn’t expect the darkness of the story due to that.

Kellen’s clan is divided into two classes; the Jan’Tep, powerful mages of which his father is one of the strongest – and Sha’Tep, those who show no magical promise and become servants, but essentially slaves, to the Jan’Tep. Already, not fun.

Kellen is fast approaching his mage trials where he’ll earn his mage name, or be forced to join the Sha’Tep. His problem is, he’s never shown much promise at anything magical – failing to spark any of his bands (there are six, one for each of the types of magic). He does have one thing going for him though, his wits.

To briefly sum up, Spellslinger follows Kellen’s story up to his trial. We meet a mysterious woman, a feisty squirrel cat who’s my favourite, and uncover secrets along the way. The main characters bring so much life and humour to the story, that’s it’s still enjoyable – which isn’t a word I find I can usually give a book with these sorts of themes. I can still think they’re amazing, well written etc., but not a joy like this one.

To bring it back to, this isn’t a sunshine and rainbows kind of story, trigger warning for animal cruelty/abuse.

Release Date: May 2017
Publisher: Hot Key Books
Genre: Fantasy, YA
Page Count: 416
Goodreads Page
Rating: ★★★★★