A review by seelicole
The Sons of Thestian by M.E. Vaughan

5.0

First of all, I want to thank M.E. Vaughan for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review. So without further ado, let's see if I can gather my thoughts well enough to form a coherent review:

Before reading The Sons of Thestian, I was going through a major reading slump. However, this book took me right out of it and I eventually found it nearly impossible to put down. If I wasn't being forced to be a human and study for midterms, I probably would have been able to finish it a lot faster.

I would highly recommend this book for anyone who loves fantasy but is looking for something different as is focuses more on family and friendship than love in the romantic sense, and I found it to be just a thrilling. I also found it funny how terribly I was butchering some of the names once I found the, extremely helpful, Glossary of Names & Titles at the end of the book.

The story started off good but morphed into something great. This was partially due to Vaughan's talent for foreshadowing. On several occasions I had to go back and re-read certain parts of the book due to other events occurring later on that were related. This is not to say that the book was difficult to read. Even though the genre is high fantasy, the world was extremely easy to digest because Vaughan did a good job of slowly introducing us to more while still keeping the plot moving.

The characters, both good and bad, were another positive factor. They were all imperfect in some way and extremely realistic in their emotions and experiences. Through these characters, you experience feelings of love, anger, peace, suspense, happiness, and betrayal. They were also extremely witty and funny, I found myself laughing out loud more than a few times while reading. It is hard not to fall in love with at least a few of them *cough cough* Rufus Merle *cough cough*.

The Sons of Thestian had the perfect combination of action, suspense, mystery, and love. At times, I found myself on the edge of my seat trying to read faster so I could find out what happened next. Other times, I caught myself thinking about what a certain passage I read might mean, or smiling at a happy moment in the book. The story culminated in a bittersweet ending which makes me eager for the next book because I am dying to know what happens. Also, because there is almost nothing about this story that is black and white, I am excited to see if any of my predictions about what will happen are correct. With such a strong first installment I believe that it will only get better from here and I can't wait for more!