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A review by kittyg
Hope and Red by Kelley Skovron
4.0
I'm SO GLAD I have finally found a book I really liked this month! This is a new release and I have to say I am so happy I picked this up, becuase it has ended the spree of not-so-great books I've recently been reading.
This book is by an author I'd not yet read, although it's not a debut. I believe Skovron has written some YA books before, but this was his first foray into adult Fantasy, and I think it worked out (although you can certainly see that there are some YA troupes here)! This is kind of a cross between Pirates and Sword & Sorcery. It's definitely a book which I found super quick to get through, super easy to read, and one which kept me engaged throughout.
In the story we follow two main characters (later three) called Hope and Red. Hope is a young orphan we meet at the start just after her whole island and family have been slaughtered and she's left by pure chance, alone but alive. Hope joins a crew and sails to a monastery where she learns a lot more than just housework.
Red is another orphan child who is raised in a well off part of town, but when his family falls apart and gets sick and he's left alone he moves to the less desirable sections of town and sets up his new life there.
The third character we meet later on is called Brigga Linn and this character is definitely one of the more interesting ones in terms of magic. Brigga Linn is a Biomancer and has extraordinary powers, but when Brigga Linn decides to share the knowledge with the council the results are not what Brigga Linn wanted!
The story worked so well for me here becuase it's fun. There are some truly brutal moments, but there are also some really amusing moments and many of these are combined to make it an easy, bloody read. The pacing is fast and we do see the main two characters as young children and then young adults with some shifts in time happening so we skip over the stereotypical 'training' sequences. I really appreciated these shifts in time as it meant that the action got going a lot quicker and it was easy to enjoy.
One other element which I liked is that the book uses a lot of slang words and many of them were old english phrases which I just enjoyed a lot. There's a lot of crude language within this one, becuase many of the characters grew up in the slums, but that just added to the feisty charm for me and I liked that. 4*s from me, and I will for sure continue this series when book #2 is out! Recommended :)
This book is by an author I'd not yet read, although it's not a debut. I believe Skovron has written some YA books before, but this was his first foray into adult Fantasy, and I think it worked out (although you can certainly see that there are some YA troupes here)! This is kind of a cross between Pirates and Sword & Sorcery. It's definitely a book which I found super quick to get through, super easy to read, and one which kept me engaged throughout.
In the story we follow two main characters (later three) called Hope and Red. Hope is a young orphan we meet at the start just after her whole island and family have been slaughtered and she's left by pure chance, alone but alive. Hope joins a crew and sails to a monastery where she learns a lot more than just housework.
Red is another orphan child who is raised in a well off part of town, but when his family falls apart and gets sick and he's left alone he moves to the less desirable sections of town and sets up his new life there.
The third character we meet later on is called Brigga Linn and this character is definitely one of the more interesting ones in terms of magic. Brigga Linn is a Biomancer and has extraordinary powers, but when Brigga Linn decides to share the knowledge with the council the results are not what Brigga Linn wanted!
The story worked so well for me here becuase it's fun. There are some truly brutal moments, but there are also some really amusing moments and many of these are combined to make it an easy, bloody read. The pacing is fast and we do see the main two characters as young children and then young adults with some shifts in time happening so we skip over the stereotypical 'training' sequences. I really appreciated these shifts in time as it meant that the action got going a lot quicker and it was easy to enjoy.
One other element which I liked is that the book uses a lot of slang words and many of them were old english phrases which I just enjoyed a lot. There's a lot of crude language within this one, becuase many of the characters grew up in the slums, but that just added to the feisty charm for me and I liked that. 4*s from me, and I will for sure continue this series when book #2 is out! Recommended :)