R.M. Archer's Blog, page 29

Preptober Prompts Day 7 – 2019

Virilia doesn’t have any music-related superstitions (that I’m aware of). However, in Teraco violins are considered cursed because they’re such a common instrument of the Harlequins. It’s believed that violin music always heralds a group of Harlequins (which is kind of true, now that these superstitions have made Harlequins the only people to play violins…); that touching a violin brings bad luck; and that playing a violin will actually turn you into a Harlequin, which involves your face falling off and leaving behind a blank mask with dark eyes. (Can’t imagine why beings with that face as a default would be considered ill luck…) So yeah, violins are pretty scarce in Teraco. ;P

Does your world have any music-based superstitions?

Today is my last day of hosting; tomorrow begins week 2, which will be hosted by Julia of Lit Aflame, over on her Twitter! Be sure to follow her! And for those of you without Twitter/social media, I’ll be posting her prompts here on the blog, though I won’t be sharing my answers until the end of the week.

If you’d like to be one of the bonus hosts during the last three days of October, submit a prompt below! You’ll get your own fancy graphic, and if you have a blog then you’ll get to host your prompt and have your blog shared on my social media. All that’s required to enter is the submission of a music-themed prep prompt, but participating in and sharing the event will better the chances of your prompt being chosen.

Note: I do reserve the right to remove from the drawing anyone I can’t find a prompt for or whose prompt doesn’t fit Preptober.

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Preptober Prompts Days 5 & 6 – 2019

While most Virilen celebrations involve music–particularly in the lower villages–there is one holiday that was set in place specifically to celebrate music itself, and the Virilen god who supposedly gave it to man. Amak is one of three children of the mother goddess, Chiean, and the creator of music, according to myth. In the beginning, creation was soundless aside from speech and the Virilens felt an inexplicable melancholy, as if something was missing. The gods, meanwhile, could hear the music of the stars.

Amak felt a deep compassion for mankind and wished for them to have something to calm them as music calmed him, so he introduced sounds into the world–birdsong, waves crashing, the sound of wind–and music was brought to Virilia.

Now, on the three days surrounding seventh full moon each year, Virilens celebrate the introduction of music to the world. The celebrations involve musical competitions, dancing, feasting, community, and simple appreciation of the natural music of the world. Often, Virilens experiment with the sounds of unconventional items and make them into instruments for the celebration; things like the whoosh of spinning parasols, the ring of a pen on lanterns, or things we’d be familiar with like blowing across water bottles.

Overall, it’s primarily an opportunity to have extra fun making and enjoying music.

Does your world have any music-centered celebrations? I’d love to hear about them!

The Liebster Award #5

Hello, fine humans, and welcome to part 5 of “Archer has been tagged for the Liebster Award.” XD (If you’d told me even last year that I’d know enough people to be tagged for the same recurring tag five times by five different people… I’d probably have laughed.) Anyway, since the questions are always different I don’t actually mind doing this tag over and over, I just find it a little amusing that it keeps coming around. BUT MOVING ON BECAUSE I’M RAMBLING.

Rules:

1. Thank the blogger who nominated you. Thanks, Eden! :D

2. Display your award.

3. Answer the questions you were asked.

4. Nominate five bloggers.

5. Ask 6 new questions.

6. Let your nominees know they were tagged.

Questions:

1. Who or what inspired you to start blogging?

My mom. She’s been blogging foreverrrrrrrrrr, and when I was… *mutters* when did Frozen come out… ELEVEN, I decided to start up a blog of my own and thus “Alpine Writer” was born. My first posts were a review of Frozen and a post about how it had convicted me to improve my relationship with my sister. (Basically I started out a lifestyle blog? Weird.) So yeah. My mom and Frozen.

2. If you could have anyone in the whole world, whether they be real or imagined, to be a special guest on your blog, who would it be?

Does this imply that someone imagined would become real or would it just be like my character interviews? Because that makes a huge difference.

But since I don’t know, I’ll stick with a real-life person. I’d love to interview Hannah Heath on my blog at some point, but I haven’t gotten around to getting rid of my “She’s published multiple fantastic books and I’m still just a beginner (even though I’ve been writing for eleven years) so I can’t possibly be important enough for her to pay attention to.” Which I’m fully aware is just me worrying too much, but… well… someday.

3. If you could do three things today that would have global impact, what would they be?

Oof… There are, like, half a dozen issues I’d love to see tackled and pretty much no idea how I’d do anything about them. Um… I guess I’d write something–either a blog post or a novel–that talks about promoting community and coming together–especially as believers–and raising each other up. And then I guess it would have to be seen by people all over the world, and actually taken to heart, which would be… wow. That would just be incredible. It would absolutely 100% have to be God, obviously.

This next one, I don’t know if it’s an issue world-wide or just in the US, but I’d love to do something that encourages Christian youth leaders and parents and teachers and all sorts of mentors like that to equip and encourage teenagers to be the next generation of believers and to make a difference in the world for the glory of God. I see too many churches dumb down their youth services, when I believe that’s a crucial time for kids to be emboldened and equipped to stand up for what they believe in and make a difference. Teens are smart, and teens are passionate, and that should be used instead of dampened, no matter what religion you ascribe to.

And I’d do something to stop abortions. I don’t have any idea what I’d do, but I’d want to do something to stop the rampant murder of babies.

4. Dark chocolate or milk chocolate?

Dark chocolate.

5. What was your first written story about?

Oh no. Someone has forced me to officially uncover the plot of my mystery story… *headdesks* First, allow me to clarify that I was six when I wrote this, I’ve always been a hopeless romantic, and I apparently had no idea how marriage works back then. Looking back, I am fully aware of how… disturbing this plot is.

So, when I was six I was obsessed with mystery stories. I have no idea how many times I reread the various Nancy Drew, Boxcar Children, Happy Hollisters, and Mandie books on our shelves. (Congratulations, you’ve just been introduced to my childhood.) Well, I also didn’t know how to build my own characters, apparently, because I dumped ALL of those characters into one story. Ish. It was mostly the Boxcar Children who were important, but the Nancy Drew characters were mentors (which was actually pretty cool), and I think the Happy Hollisters were in there somewhere. Anyway, for the first scene someone was in possession of the One Ring and using it to invisibly spy on the main characters, and then that plot point never came into play again. But then someone was coming to the door and the girls were being kidnapped one by one as they went to answer the door. (Why on earth one of the guys didn’t go check on things after one or two incidents, I couldn’t tell you.) After all of the girls were kidnapped (obviously, because you wouldn’t try to go stop it), the guys followed the clues through a hotel and maybe a couple other places, to finally find that their mailman had kidnapped all of the girls and was holding them… because he was lonely and looking for a wife…which made it all okay.

…

…

…

*crickets*

…

…

Yeah.

Don’t know how even my young brain didn’t realize that was just… wrong. Apparently the fact that he was going to wait for one of the girls to grow up before he married her made it okay.

Yeah, no.

This is why we never mention the very first story I wrote.

‘Cause I was a creepy child.

Moving on.

Also, my sincerest apologies to all of the fictional characters that I insulted with that story.

6. What is your favorite thing about blogging?

The community. Getting to share my thoughts and then have a conversation in the comments (on the occasions when that actually happens), and getting to facilitate community and encourage other writers and all that. I love that it gives me a place to help and encourage other writers.

Nominees:

Julian at Saver of Memories

Allie at Of Rainy Days and Stardust Veins

Leila at Wildflowers and Cosmic Tea

Edna at Bleeding Ink

Nicole at Legend of a Writer

New Questions

1. What’s a song you’ve recently discovered and loved?

2. If you had to describe yourself in five songs, what songs would you use?

3. If you could be an instant expert in anything, what would it be?

4. What do you want to do before you die?

5. What have you been curious about lately?

Well, now you can all be as scarred by that story as I am. And now a question for all of you: What’s the most embarrassing piece of fiction you’ve written?

Preptober Prompts Day 4 – 2019

There’s no music-based magic in Virilia, no. In Teraco (which is significantly westward of Virilia) there’s a race of Harlequins who possess illusion magic and sometimes use music to focus it–violins and flutes are especially popular among Harlequins–but unfortunately, none of my worlds include legitimately music-based magic (yet).

Does your world feature any music-based magic? I’d love to hear about it down in the comments!

And don’t forget that you can submit prompts! There are three “extra” days in October which aren’t part of an official Promptober week (thank you, Anne, for this term!), and I’ll be featuring reader-submitted prompts for those days. All you have to do is submit a prompt below, but you can improve your chances of getting your prompt chosen by sharing about and participating in Preptober Prompts. The three readers who are chosen will get special graphics for their prompts, and if they’re bloggers then their blogs will be featured. Any prompts not chosen will be compiled into a list as a bonus for those who want extra prompts. Sound cool? Submit a prompt below!

Note: I do reserve the right to remove from the drawing anyone I can’t find a prompt for or whose prompt doesn’t fit Preptober.

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Preptober Prompts Day 3 – 2019

In Virilia’s lower villages, music is viewed as a form of expression and entertainment, and it’s acknowledged by the Virilens as a way of bringing people together. It’s primarily something done for fun, though artistry is definitely involved and musicians strive to learn as much as they can about their instruments. They often ascribe to a “Learn the rules before you break them” philosophy when it comes to music.

In the upper cities, music is still viewed as a form of expression but it’s much more controlled. In the cities, music is first and foremost an art to be mastered and perfected. Musicians express themselves, but within the rules. As such, music is viewed as a display of talent and it’s enjoyed more as an appreciation of an art than as pure entertainment.

How is music viewed in your world? How does it differ from place to place?

Preptober Prompts Day 2 – 2019

In the lower villages of Virilia, music is something that brings communities together. Lower village communities are always fairly close-knit, but music is one of the things that always brings a village’s members to one place and helps to foster relationships. It’s something that many lower villagers can connect over, since most play an instrument of some kind. They can share their skills and knowledge with one another and help each other grow in a way that’s more universal than even an official occupation.

Music similarly brings people together physically in the upper cities, but it doesn’t have the same connecting factors in a society that’s focused less on community and more on artistic achievement (generally a solitary endeavor). Music in the upper cities impacts individuals more than it impacts society, in most cases.

How does music impact society in your world? Drop your answer in the comments! :)

Preptober Prompts Day 1 – 2019

Preptober is finally here, along with the first installment of Preptober Prompts! :D This year we’re starting off with worldbuilding, which is a topic I absolutely love, and I’m super excited to jump into it… so let’s just do that!

I have a whole vast story world (y’all may have heard of Kersir. This is an extended version of that), but for this month I’m focusing on a country called Virilia, since that’s where my NaNo novel takes place.

Virilia is home to a handful of instruments that do exist in the real world but that I wasn’t familiar with until developing Virilia and diving into Asian and Middle Eastern instruments. It’s also home to instruments like the ocarina, which are slightly lesser known but more people here in the US are familiar with (thanks, Legend of Zelda).

My mentor character, for instance, plays the pipa, which is a four-stringed, pear-shaped Chinese instrument similar to a guitar. Another side character plays the Đàn tranh, which is a little like a really long lap harp. (Do I know how to pronounce its name? No. No, I do not.)

Singing is also a common form of music, and it’s not unusual to find someone around you humming at any given moment in Virilia.

Musical style depends on where you are in the country. If you’re in one of the lower villages, farther west, it’s more lively and upbeat most of the time. Music is a community activity in smaller villages, and it’s accompanied by dancing.

In the upper cities closer to the capital, however, it’s considered more of a “refined” art in most circumstances and music is slower and more melodic. Music is often played in the background of everyday activities in the palace and the homes of other nobles, or set up as a calm day show.

Festivals, however, change the tone of music even in the upper cities. On the occasion of a joyful holiday, music across Virilia looks more like lower village entertainment. It’s upbeat and lively, and always accompanied by dancing and singing. It also serves as a background sound for feasts and a few ceremonies.

What sort of music and instruments are common in your world, or to your characters? Drop your answer in the comments!

6 Tips and Tricks for NaNoWriMo Success

We’re down to a month until NaNoWriMo, and Preptober has officially begun! As we officially enter NaNo mode, I’d like to share a handful of tips and tricks that have helped me achieve NaNoWriMo success and will hopefully help you, whether it’s your first time or your fifteenth.

1. Make Sure Your Project is NaNoWriMo Compatible

All writing projects are not equal when it comes to NaNoWriMo. Some writing projects are significantly better suited to being written quickly than others, as I’ve learned the hard way over the past couple of years. In my experience, a NaNoWriMo project should fit the following criteria:

1. Fully novel length

Unless it’s your specific intention, you don’t want to end up writing a novella for NaNoWriMo and undershooting the word count. Make sure your idea is big enough to become a full novel, or have a plan for filling in the last few thousand words (again, unless your intention is to shoot for a lower word count in November).

2. Fun to write/A story you’re passionate about

If you’re not excited about your project, it’s not going to be easy to write quickly. You want a story that’s fun or that you’re really passionate about telling; one that you really want to write and not one that you just want to finish.

3. Not super heavy

This will vary from person to person, but generally you don’t want to write too heavy a story during NaNoWriMo because they generally take longer to write. Deep issues need to be focused on and thought about, so they’re generally not written quickly. Again, it will depend on the person what is “heavy” and how their specific writing process works, but this has been my experience.

2. Use Rewards

These can be little rewards like “Once I meet my word count for today I can read for an hour,” big rewards like “Once I hit 25k I’m going to bake myself cookies,” or both. Developing some sort of incentive to reach your goals can be super helpful in motivating you to actually achieve them.

Two years ago, my goal was 100k (I don’t know what I was thinking), and I arranged that if I hit 25k I would bake myself peanut butter cookies, at 50k I’d buy myself a NaNoWriMo winner t-shirt, at 75k I’d bake myself pumpkin bread, and at 100k I’d buy the book I was super excited to read (Echoes by Miranda Marie).

Think about what rewards would be both practical and effective for you.

3. Participate in Word Wars

I can’t tell you how helpful these have been for me every year I’ve participated in NaNoWriMo. If you’re competitive, especially, and/or if you love cheering on others, these are a great option. Word wars are where you decide a certain amount of time that you and a friend (or multiple friends) are going to write (usually about 10-20 minutes, but I’ve also participated in half hour and hour-long word wars) and at the end of it you figure out which of you got the higher word count in that time frame. Personally, I’m competitive, so these get me writing like crazy; but I also love cheering on others, so I love encouraging/congratulating the other person/people, as well.

Generally, if you’re part of a writing group, word wars are easy to find or start. Just post asking if anyone’s up for a word war, and work together to sort out a time.

Another option is myWriteClub, which is a tool for tracking writing projects that also has a section for word sprints. There’s a global sprint, if you can’t find anyone else to word war with, but it also allows you to set up a custom sprint that you can invite specific people to via link. One thing I like about myWriteClub’s sprints is that you can see your opponents’ progress in more-or-less real-time, which can be really motivating for getting your writing speed up.

4. Use Fighter’s Block

This is another sprinting tool for when you don’t have anyone to word war with or just want to go, go, go on your own time. You select a character, set a word count to beat, and hit start. You type directly into the site, and as long as you’re typing you’re lowering your opponent’s health points, he can’t hit you, and you build up your own HP. If you stop typing, though, your HP starts to deteriorate. Fighter’s Block has settings for monster speed (how quickly your HP fades if you stop), monster strength (how much HP disappears at a time if you stop), and the look of the word processor (font, size, background color, etc.). It’s a really handy tool, and it’s helped me out a lot over the years since I discovered it.

5. Share Snippets

This is a personal preference thing, I know some people are cautious about sharing their writing, but it can be fun and helpful to share short pieces of your writing with friends as you go. Positive feedback can be great fuel for motivation, and, depending on your writing process, sharing your writing can also be a great opportunity to get constructive critique and improve your writing as you go. (Not editing what you’ve already written, because that slows you down and that’s not something we want during NaNoWriMo, but learning your strengths and weaknesses so you can build on that knowledge moving forward through the month.)

If you’re not sure about sharing your writing publicly in a writing group, try finding just one or two friends who will read your writing and encourage you through the month.

6. Hype Yourself Up Beforehand

Use this month to get yourself excited for your project. Build a story playlist, participate in Preptober Prompts, fill out Pinterest boards, write snippets to get yourself into the mindsets of your characters… Whatever gets you excited for a project, do it. The more excited you are for your project, the easier it will be to write.

How about you? If you’ve done NaNoWriMo before, what tips and tricks have worked for you? If this is your first time, what tricks are you excited to try? Let’s help each other get pumped up and ready!

The 20 Questions Book Tag

I’m back with another book tag! I was tagged to do this by Dekreel at The Inky RambleBeast, so a big thank you to her. :)

Apparently this tag doesn’t have any rules, so let’s just jump in!

1. How many books are too many in a series?

Um… *counts Shannara books* About 20. After that, they started to all feel the same and were more in keeping with modern secular culture and I just slowly lost interest. But if I like your characters, I’ll stick with them for years.

2. How do you feel about cliff-hangers?

As chapter endings, they’re fairly effective. (Just don’t leave us on a cliffhanger and then cut to a different group of characters that I don’t care about for two chapters. Please and thank you.) As book endings… I don’t actually think I’ve read a lot of books that ended on cliffhangers? Or maybe my memory is just totally failing me. So I don’t know.

3. Hardcover or paperback?

Paperback. No contest. They’re way easier to handle, in my opinion, because they’re flexible and you don’t have to deal with a dust jacket sliding around.

4. Favorite book?

May I direct you to my entire shelf of favorites? But I suppose if I had to pick one… *sighs* The Warden and the Wolf King legitimately surprised me and made me sob (the first is a near-impossible feat and the second had literally never happened prior to this book), so it’s a pretty good contender.

5. Least favorite book?

I’m torn between The Collective by R.S. Williams, which had a cool premise but was atrociously written and contained all the tropes you can possibly think of, to the extent of my covering it in red ink for the second half because I couldn’t just sit and read this royally bad writing; and The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper, which I was required to read for school, hated everything about until the last couple of chapters when it finally got interesting, and wanted to burn by the time I was done.

(*cough* can you tell I hated these books?)

6. Love triangles, yes or no?

In general, no. However, if they serve an actual purpose and don’t take precedence over an actual plot (who’s actually going to be trying to decide which guy she likes better in a life-or-death situation?) then I might not mind them.

7. The most recent book you couldn’t finish?

This had nothing to do with the books, but I borrowed Rook by Sharon Cameron and The Looking Glass Wars by Frank Beddor from the library and didn’t get around to reading either before they were due… after three renewals.

8. A book you are currently reading?

Again, I can give you a list, although this one is significantly shorter. I guess I’ll focus on Counter Culture by David Platt, which is a non-fiction book about living in accordance with scripture despite the anti-Christian culture around us. I’m about a quarter of the way through and so far it’s been really good.

9. Last book you recommended to someone?

Looks like The Wingfeather Saga. Because The Warden the the Wolf King wrecked me and I want my friends to feel that same emotional destruction.

10. Oldest book you’ve read? (publication date)

Besides the Bible, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Irving Washington, published in 1819. (I think. I have a set of that and Rip Van Winkle on my Goodreads list and that’s what I’m going off of.)

11. Newest book you’ve read? (publication date)

100 Days of Sunlight by Abbie Emmons. Which was FANTASTIC and I highly recommend.

12. Favorite author?

Probably Andrew Peterson. But Hannah Heath is also fantastic.

13. Buying books or borrowing?

If a book isn’t by an author who I automatically support and buy from (The Phoenix Fiction Writers, Wayne Thomas Batson, or authors I know personally) then I generally prefer to borrow it first to make sure I like it and then buy it later. Generally a lot later, because I usually go a long time before I reread a book. But I like to have books on my shelves (too many of them… they don’t all fit…).

14. A book you dislike that everyone seems to love?

The Maze Runner series. The first book was fine, but The Scorch Trials and The Death Cure? Oof. No thank you. I will not be rereading those ever. Those were just painful to read. I wanted to throw The Scorch Trials at a wall, and The Death Cure served no purpose whatsoever. But the movies were good. The movies resolved most of the issues I had with the books.

15. Bookmarks or dog-ears?

BOOKMARKS.

16. A book you can always reread?

Well, seeing as I’ve reread each series 3-5 times… The Door Within trilogy and the Dreamtreaders trilogy by Wayne Thomas Batson. I’ve reread Dreamtreaders the most, simply because the second book in The Door Within series follows a second main character who I don’t like very much and it’s kind of frustrating because I LOVE so many of the side characters, and I love the world, but that main character… just bugs me. But anyway. Moving on. (I’m ranting way too much in this post. XD)

17. Can you read while hearing music?

Ehhh? I probably could if it was solely instrumental, but I don’t especially want to. I feel like if the tone of the music didn’t match the tone of the scene I was reading it would bug me.

18. One POV or multiple POVs?

It depends. Both have their benefits. One risk with multiple POVs, though, is that you’ll end up with chapters in between where the reader just really doesn’t care and wants to get back to the characters they like, whereas in a single-POV book a reader will just stop reading if they don’t like the POV character. It’s kind of frustrating as a reader to love most of a book but then be bored every two or three chapters because you’ve switched POVs. But it’s also really cool to see a story from multiple perspectives. So it depends.

19. Do you read a book in one sitting or over multiple days?

It depends. Usually over multiple days, but if the circumstances are right (I’m avoiding sleep, I’ve been challenged by someone, I’m stressed and need to unwind, the book is short, the book is really good and sucking me in, etc.) then I can definitely finish a book in one sitting. One week in May I finished roughly a full Harry Potter book in each sitting because I’d been bet I couldn’t read the whole series by the next weekend.

20. Who do you tag?

Allie at Of Rainy Days and Stardust Veins

Leila at Wildflowers and Cosmic Tea

Eden at The Happy Hedgehog

And anyone else who wants to do it! :)

Book Review: Child of the Kaites by Beth Wangler

Star rating: 3.5 stars.

I’d been super excited to read this story since January, and two weeks ago I was finally able to finish it. It took me longer to read than I’d hoped (about two months), mostly because I was reading it on kindle rather than paperback, so some of the details from the first quarter or so are a bit fuzzy, but here are my basic thoughts on it.

I went into this book expecting a grand adventure set in a really vivid desert fantasy world, but I quickly realized this is a much more character-driven story and the first quarter was all about establishing those characters and fleshing out their relationships, which I found myself pretty okay with. I was rooting for the characters, I wanted to see them resolve the initial relational conflict, and that was really cool. The character dynamics were really compelling in that first quarter, and while I didn’t especially connect with most of the characters, that’s pretty normal for me, and I was still able to like them, so it didn’t really bother me.

Interestingly enough, it was when the adventure I was expecting set in that I started to connect with the book less and less. Part of this was my own high expectations. I was looking forward to incredibly immersive worldbuilding, and this book just wasn’t quite there, for me. I think if I hadn’t had the expectations I did, I would have enjoyed the world just fine, because the worldbuilding is definitely strong, it just didn’t pull me in as much as I was hoping it would. The aivenkaites were especially interesting, and the battles between them and the main characters and the kaites were cool to read. And the axex! I loved the axex.

I was also anticipating more action surrounding the plagues and other Moses-based events, and those aren’t really dwelt on very much. The plagues, especially, felt kind of rushed to me, and I would have liked to be able to see the effects of the plagues on the land and the Izyphorns rather than just hearing their reactions?

When the main plot set in, there was also less time to focus on the characters, and additional characters were introduced who I feel like didn’t get enough attention as they maybe could have or weren’t used to their full potential. When we meet the bandits, for instance, a lot of page space is spent reminding the reader of each character’s ethnicity instead of showing the details of their ethnicity or letting the character speak for themselves, and I wasn’t able to really connect each character with the details that came with them because I was too busy trying to keep their nationalities straight.

In the writing, I was a little put-off by the inconsistencies in the language and wording of things. Sometimes it seemed very old-fashioned and fantastical, but then there would be lines or phrases thrown in that felt very modern, and it was a little awkward. But I loved the conlang Wangler created for the world, and it was super cool to see that woven in throughout the book!

I want to look at some of the characters more specifically, and then I’ll wrap up the review.

Forziel. I was slightly frustrated I couldn’t get a firm grip on how old Forziel was (I got the impression from Rai’s calling him a “young boy” that he was closer to 10 or 11, but most of the writing seemed to indicate he was more of a teenager?), but overall I really enjoyed his character. He was fun, he was loyal, and his relationship with his axex was fun to read. I did feel like his backstory was kind of shoehorned in and more told than shown, and I would have liked to see that played out more and be more nuanced, but that was a short section of the book and was just a minor disappointment.

Rai. As with most characters, I didn’t have any strong feelings toward Rai, either good or bad. There were a couple points where I felt like she was overly remorseless, but I do understand where she was coming from and why she would have thought that way, and they were really brief. I loved her relationship with Savi, and it was really cool to see a couple tackling a mission together and supporting each other the whole way, and I really enjoyed that aspect of the book.

Speaking of Savi… He’s another character I really enjoyed. He was sweet and supportive and diplomatic, and it was really cool to see how he and Rai balanced each other and used their skills to complement each other through  their mission. And I appreciated that he was firm in his faith, but also had doubts, especially when it came to difficult life events.

Nhardah was an awesome character. I found him especially interesting in the first quarter, when he was still a bit of a mystery and a little bit of a cryptic mentor sort, but I still enjoyed following and reading about him in the rest of the book and enjoyed his mentor-student relationship with the rest of the group.

Overall, I was able to enjoy this book even though it wasn’t what I expected, and I’m curious what I would think of it if I reread it now that I know what to expect. I’d recommend it to anyone who’s a fan of character-driven Christian fantasy and strong relationship dynamics.