Long Live Freedom

by Elizabeth Hunt

When Karter, banished and alone, stumbles across the Kingdom of Conquistado, he finds himself recruited to the Pantasmas -the rebel group living in the forest just outside town. From there, they do their best to thwart Derex Fallon, a man who stole the crown ten years ago and has kept a strangling hold on the populace ever since. When a crazy tradition gives the Pantasma's leader, Alick, the chance of a lifetime, Karter and Alick embark on a journey to the mountains beyond to find help of a most unusual kind. In this stunning story of a handful of teenagers struggling to fight the injustice of a nation there is mystery, romance, and adventure of all kinds. The Battle for Libre commences and the reign of Derex Fallon balances on the edge of a blade.

354 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 9, 2014

About the author

A college student and author, Elizabeth Hunt is the author of 5 novels and is in the process of writing a new series more. She has also written and illustrated two children's picture books.

Reviews

[Mummy Cat Claire · Rating 1 out of 5]

The book starts out with Karter Rider searching for a town. When he finds a trader who is willing to take him to Conquistado, he jumps at the chance, even among many warnings that the town is run by an evil king. Karter ends up in the woods, where a bunch of kids live called the Pantasmas. Their leader, Alik, and others like Sam and Rydly, take in Karter and teach him to fight. Shortly after his arrival, it is Heritor Day. A day that cannot be ignored by any who dwell in this land. It serves are a means to choose the next ruler. King Fallon is evil and the people are oppressed.

"Derex Fallon, dictator of Conquistado. 'Bout ten years ago he conquered Libre, killed the king, and took over. He's made our lives miserable ever since. The Pantasmas are us, Rydly gestured to the group of boys and girls that bustled about the camp, we're rebels, so to speak. We live here in the forest separate from Fallon's rule."

As fate would have it, Alik is chosen. She chooses to fight and the Pantasmas, or her family, support her.

The story covers such themes as rooting for the underdogs and good vs evil. It also adds in some medieval flare, fairy-tale and fantasy aspects, such as dragons and legends. However, I think these add-ins were poorly used.

The world building is poorly done. Apparently, Herito Day is a "law [that] predates Fallon by thousands of years. No one has ever ignored it and no one ever will. Not even Fallon. There are powers in this world even he fears." But the book never explains what those powers are or why they are feared. The book tells of a witch who created Herito day but there is never any mention as to why or how or who she is, etc. Things are just stated without any explanation.

Another example, are the woods or the Forest. This part of the land confused me. Fallon is having a wall build by every able body. "His wall is twenty foot high stone structure being built around the city..." However, during the book, the wall is still being built. So the forest isn't surrounded by some wall. So, why did no one ever think to leave? If the forest is safe to live in, then travel, go..go far away from this evil King. Move on, grow..live in peace. There is no explanation of why the characters never thought to do this? Furthermore, the characters keep saying how there is only one way out of the forest and that is through town. Why? How? There is no wall surrounding the forest or its sides so how it is the only way out?

My copy seemed to have missing sections. There would be gaps in the words or sentences. This was irritating but at least it wasn't pages. I've had that happen a few times.

The author makes a big deal about some characters names. Seems in this world, people use their middle names as their everyday name. First names are for more formal times. But the why is never explained.

Karter finds a necklace that he thinks might be important. He mentions many times how he needs to show it to Alik but it takes him forever. The book mentions how a month passed and then he finally works up the courage, I guess. I didn't think it would be such a big deal but this was hard for him. No explanations why he waited and a very vague description of the necklace.

The author mentions how two characters hate each other. Sam and Rydly, supposedly hate each other but I never really felt such hate. I felt annoyance, not even dislike. They had some banter but nothing I could classify as mean and hateful.

Things go on to be inconsistent. Karter gets a gash in his back that is first described as "exposing muscle and ligament..." Then is it blown off and he hardly complains about it only for it to disappear entirely from the story. This was weird for me. Anything deep enough to expose muscle is very serious. There are no stitches and no cleaning supplies...book treated it like a scratch.

Overall, I never really loved or cared for the characters in this book. They fell very flat for me as well as the details of their Kingdom. The dragons come into the book about 80% in and were poorly used in the story. Apparently, they understood Alick with the necklace but they did no talk. This was strange for me in that the communication between the two species seemed too difficult. Plus, I thought Alick and Karter's introduction to the dragons was rude and then they left the two dragons alone in a strange forest then the characters used a tunnel. The lack of explanations wore on me. Sam and Rydly have it out and their fight isn't written down. Their fighting throughout the book wasn't written very well. There was a whole lot of telling the reader and hardly any showing. Lastly, it's parry, thrust, lunge, attack etc. not strike, turn, duck, swipe. Skip it.

Content: clean

I received a copy of the book from the author in exchange for an honest review.

[Sincerely Books · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is . . . alright. I guess. It's a little difficult to give a truly accurate review because my opinion of it fluctuated so frequently. It was an interesting idea, but not particularly well-written or thought out.

For starters, the writing style isn't particularly interesting. It was rudimentary and simple, although what the author was trying to convey was successfully communicated throughout the book. Occasionally, the book contradicted itself ("Alick hadn't really though much beyond keeping him safe. He was clearly an outsider, and Fallon did not take well to outsiders. She was surprised he even made it into the kingdom." meanwhile when Karter was actually getting into the kingdom . . . "'Karter. Traveler,' Karter interrupted before Kaernon could answer. 'Traveling where?' The man asked and Karter could've sworn he narrowed his eyes. 'Here, preferably,' . . . 'Make trouble and it's the gallows,' the armored man said monotonously.") Everyone always made a big deal about the atrocities that the new ruler was holding against the kingdom, however I didn't really see anything too terrible. Drafting children seemed to be the only horrible thing committed . . . and this in itself didn't really make sense. Why do this? Surely there are easier ways to keep people under your thumb . . . and the adults were not rebellious in the least save for being sympathizers with the rouge children's group. It just wasn't all that realistic. The characters were also a bit two demential. The villain was boring and the kids were predictable. In addition, Karter is introduced as the main character, but as the story progresses it focuses less and less on him, and more on Alick, which just isn't right . . . he's the main character . . . right? Also, the more it focused on Alick, the more I hated her. She's the leader of an army of children and she continually made decisions that were questionable in logic for the well being of the group. For example, she put Karter into battle. Even if it was on the edge and out of the way (until he rushed straight into it like an idiot), he had already proven he couldn't fight or shoot or . . . anything really, and she willingly put this person who is incapable of helping anyone or even defending himself into battle. This is because of her rather obvious crush on him, which frankly I don't understand. Why wouldn't she want to protect him? And I realize that Karter rushing in was important to the plot but really.

All in all, I can't really say that I liked this book. It does deserve three stars, however, because it wasn't all that bad. Sure, the writing and the plot and the characters could be better, but there was something compelling about it. I wanted to keep reading it. Would I recommend this book? Maybe not. It feels like it isn't quite finished, like it could use one more working over, but the basic idea is good.

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

[Geneva Handleman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fantasy young adult about a kingdom that has been overtaken by an evil king who is oppressing the population and has nearly ruined the livelihood of all the city dwellers. In a mixture of Oliver Twist and Peter Pan, a gang of children has formed in the woods. They sneak into town and steal what they need, trying to only take from the king himself and not from the citizens. A young prince from a neighboring kingdom has been banished simply because he is the weaker twin and he falls into their hands. Can the children overthrow the king? Will the young prince become one of the gang or remain a prisoner?

I thoroughly enjoyed the entire book, and have several young friends I will be recommending it to. The characters are well developed and engage you almost immediately. The plot has a perfect twist and an awesome climax. Great for all ages!!

As an independent reviewer for Romance Authors that Rock, I give this one a well earned four hearts!

[Paige Turner · Rating 2 out of 5]

Fantasy. A genre that allows us to pretend, if but for a moment, that dragons, unicorns, and weres (oh my!) exist. There are only about one hundred and fifty pages, so Hunt didn’t have a large amount of space (of course, that was by design), but a short book is never an excuse for poor execution.

There was almost nothing wrong with the plot. I did see a couple of holes, a few circumstances and (convenient) outcomes that made me roll my eyes, and unnecessary death(s), but it honestly was a fairly solid plot. I think it could have really bloomed into a fantasy story that I would have loved to visit if some of the issues I’ll mention are addressed.

The characters could have been great. I liked the name “Alick,” it was different and “Karter,” which is (obviously) spelled with a ‘k’. The only issue is that cardboard has more depth than them. Don’t get me wrong, they have tragic backstories, but I wasn’t sold on them. I read them and thought, “Aw.” but that was as far as I felt. There was no conviction in the information they told and therefore I felt none. I knew their cause, what they had been through, but they all fell flat. All of them, Alick and Karter include, lacked character development altogether. If none of your other/side characters have any form of mental or personality or decision-making growth, at the very least, you owe it to the reader, (with few exceptions), to have your main characters grow. It’s the right thing to do. In addition to that, one character is singled out and undermined whenever it’s possible. Alick even said to herself that “It [ignoring them] made it easier to undermine [them].” The character in question was given such a bad attitude that I was/am convinced that they were a villain. Why do such a thing? It didn’t make much sense to me. A leader should never allow, encourage, or participate in the ridiculing of someone who follows them or anyone in general. That is bad form and doesn’t demonstrate leadership skills.

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