Young up-and-coming author Liz McKinnen has no idea that her life is about to change forever when she comes home from her first book tour. When she’s kidnapped and told by her captors that she has to kill her fantasy book’s antagonist, she thinks that she’s fallen into the hands of crazy, dangerous fans… until her antagonist sends a real, fire-breathing dragon after her. Liz is quickly initiated into the Immortal Writers, a group of authors from throughout time whose words have given them eternal life, and whose prose is so powerful that it’s brought stories over from the Imagination Field into the Reality Field. As Liz meets authors such as William Shakespeare, JRR Tolkien, Edgar Allan Poe, and Jane Austen, she has to learn how to control magic, fight dragons, and face her own troubled past before her power-hungry villain takes over the world. Will she survive the ultimate battle against the dragon lord whom she created?
I received a copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley. What follows is my opinion and mine alone.
I really wanted to like this book. I really, truly did. The concept of immortal authors was very cool. The idea that they become a part of their story and have to stop their antagonist was also interesting. That said, this book was meh.
I should address that it wasn’t the writing style. Bowers’ style is easy to read and understand. There are lines I found myself quoting to friends because I found myself laughing (usually it was Shakespeare). That said, I still wasn’t completely sold on the book.
What was the problem?
Well… it was the characters and the tiny details of the storyline. Liz was a character who tried to be interesting, but didn’t have anything that I could relate to in the first 25% of the book. I didn’t care about her. I ended up reading just for the tiny tidbits of authors talking.
And about that… it felt cut out. Like, what you assume they would be talking about or how they talked. You don’t get a good feel of any of them. Not even Liz’s characters, who are alive. They don’t have real personalities. It’s just “well, you know our personalities. You wrote us.”
I feel the concept was cool and would have been more interesting if we weren’t introduced into the Immortal Writers’ world or group until AFTER Liz had taken care of her big baddie.
So, yeah, unfortunately, I didn’t care for this book.
Final Rating: 2/5
Casia's Corner 