Once Upon a Time 8 Challenge Read - The Sacred Seven by Amy Stout
The Sacred Seven - One Land Saga
Author: Amy Stout
A peace between the three races--humans, dwarves and elves--is threatened as a band of giant trolls and an Elfwitch wreak havoc on the land, wiping out village after village. Now a group of unlikely companions--a young mercenary, her dragon, a dwarf and a royal spy--must band together to unite the land which hovers on the brink of destruction.
The book had an interesting premise and begins with the death of the great King that united the one land. His two closest advisors have taken it upon themselves to secret away his youngest offspring, royal twins, in the hopes that raised away from the intrigues and foibles of his court they will have something sorely lacking in his heirs at court...backbone and intelligence.
Jump forward twenty years in time with chapter two and the one land has fallen into warring states with race against race and no one person able to hold the throne for longer than a season or two.
A young dwarf returns home from a ramble and discovers his whole village has been razed to nothing but ash.
A mercenary and her companion, a crippled dragon are hired by a Shoreman to protect an elf witch.
Which turns out to be a massive mistake.
A human mage, her daughter and the soldier that fathered her are poking around in things better left laying.
A shop-keeper and his wife sell an elven bracelet that they were given for safekeeping twenty years before.
These are just a few of the many and varied peoples inhabiting the land that weave in and out of the story, chapter by chapter....
I really wanted to like this book...it just needed to be about 340 pages longer than it was in order to give everyone involved the attention that 'they' and the story needed. It could have also benefited by a good editor. Several times folk just 'appear' with no explanation as if the author thought she had already written them into the storyline. The dragon Grosik is an example. There are also a few occassions where she uses the wrong name, Walther instead of William...and when people supposedly across the village are just 'there' magically and with no explanation. The story weaves from character to character with no particular reason or explanation. The shopkeeper William and his wife Lyda are in the whole book and I don't understand WHY??? Once the bracelet had left their keeping their part in the story was basically done! This happens over and over. The dwarf Walther and his neice Ceely are other examples. In the whole book with basically NO reason. Then in the next to the last chapter Walther is suddenly shown to be an untrained mage?!? What! where did 'that' come from??? The book wandered around aimlessly until it seemed that Ms. Stout realized she needed to wrap it up and then ALL the action happened in the last two chapters! Short chapters at that!
When all was said and done, it's a great premise that was sadly not brought to fruition, and basically left me confused and annoyed. There 'is' a second novel but after my experience with this one i'm loathe to try it. Even tho I would like to know if any of the characters actually achieve a happy ending.