Book Review- Quest of the Demon by M L Sawyer

Title: Quest of the Demon

 Author: M L Sawyer

Series:  Quest of the Demon #1

Published:   March 2011 by Equilibrium Books. Also found on Smashwords

Length: 277 pages

Warnings: Profanity-mild. Kissing-middle. Sea battle violence and semi graphic gore, attempted rape,

Source:  Author. Thank you very much.

Other info: This is the first in a series. Book 2, Tallen, should be out in December. 

Summary : Darci is a popular sixteen-year-old girl who plays basketball and lives in an ordinary country town. But her life is changed forever when she is accidentally transported to the land of Nahaba by a young apprentice wizard called Taslessian. 
Within hours of her unexpected arrival, both teens are thrust into a dangerous journey to the cave of Grisham the Great in the hope that he would be able to send her home.
Upon reaching the cave, however, Darci quickly discovers that there is no such thing as accidents, and that their journey is only just beginning.

Review: This gets off to a very quick start. Darci is accidentally zapped into a fantasy world within the first few pages. This is done by apprentice wizard Taslessian. However, being only a apprentice means that he doesn’t know how to send her back. And neither can his master. The only thing they can suggest is that they go find a greater wizard, such as a dragon. Said dragon says that there is nothing they can do about it as she has a greater purpose somewhere. Said purpose is to quest in order to find a way to defeat a demon, Demolish, who has come into the world and upset the magical balance. She can only get home if they succeed. And so with Taslessian,  and some others, Darci gets to fight to save the world as they know it.

As I said, a quick start. Then the action keeps coming and coming, hardly slowing down. It kept you interested and you had to be paying attention. At times the descriptions drag on a little too much, when you just want to find out what’s happening without going into too much detail. However, when the action was slightly slowed, the description was interesting. It’s interesting seeing it in third person, when it could easily have been written in first, a format we see more often in young adult, particularly non-realistic books.

Our protagonists are all very likeable. Lief and Taslessian were both incredibly nice, and the love triangle with Darci was somewhat stereotypical but nevertheless nice to see develop. We also got some good backstory, which we had to wait a long while for, thus answering questions we had about the characters. My favourite character is Defyance, the female warrior-especially the way she verbally spars with a dragon. And I loved the dragons too!

Something I didn’t quite get was the sense of time passing. I guess with all the action I didn’t realise the time passing. I only really noticed when it said that Darci’s hair had grown three inches and I was all like “three inches...that’s a lot....but hair grows slowly....THEY’VE REALLY BEEN THERE THAT LONG??”. It’s hard to believe that she was there for a long time.

The story progressed quickly, through all the stages of the typical fantasy book (normality, disturbance, find info, get going, progress, big fight, back to normal/cliffhanger). There was a good mix of action and fantasy, with the romance being only a side extra. The ending was absolutely amazing-a lot of action and a good showdown involving our five heroes, demon Demolish, and evil wizard Domati.

Overall: A great adventure fantasy series I really want to see more of, ie book 2 Tallen. Strength 4.  

Links: Amazon | Goodreads | Author website + Trailer| 




And just for you, a discount code!!
If you want to go read this, for a limited time only, you can get 75% off the price! So from $4, it becomes $1. However much that is in English, I don't know. But I'm guessing it's cheap. Why not, considering it's a great book?

To get your discount, go to the smashwords site (click here)and at the checkout, enter discount code VU75D. As I said, this is for a limited time only, as it expires on 30th September 2011. So go and get your copies now!!