Sunday, May 8, 2011

Shifting Fate (The Chronicles of Fate 1)

Shifting Fate (The Chronicles of Fate 1)
By:  Alexis Leno
AISN:  B004PLNQ4C
Available Format:  ebook
Published February 25, 2011

My Rating:  ★★★☆☆

Shifting Fate by Alexis Leno introduces us to the world of the heroine, Brynn.  As the princess of the kingdom of Alii in the mystic realm of Lizon, Brynn lives a rather ordinary and uneventful life with her parents and two brothers.  When a man from her past resurfaces with new and dangerous power, her familiar world is turned upside down.  A once certain and literally predestined fate is suddenly thrown off balance, and Brynn finds herself on a journey to discover just how extraordinary she truly is. 

I luckily snagged a complimentary copy of Shifting Fate in a book giveaway.  I truly appreciate the opportunity to read and review new books! 

Overall, I believe the core story of the book is really great.  I was drawn in by the characters and what they could do from the very beginning.  Leno unquestionably has a tremendous amount of creativity and imagination.  I most certainly never had any trouble visualizing the setting or any of the characters.  The chemistry between Brynn and Cyrus was believable and entertaining without going overboard.  I also appreciated the dynamics of the royal family and the people of the village Brynn later visits. 

At times I felt that the writing was a bit too wordy.  I think Leno tended to “over-describe” everything a little.  She also used the same words several times in a paragraph quite often.  I cannot criticize too harshly, because I know I do the same (having been told so by someone else)!  What I really feel that this book needed was a great editor.  The content is there; it just needs to be cleaned up!

Back to the pleasant stuff:  I would really love to see Alexis go back and write more about the Great War of the past.  I felt a lot of the events in Shifting Fate would have made a lot more sense if she had started the story a little further back or dedicated some more of this book to clearly explaining past events.  I think she has a great deal of fabulous material to carry this narrative on for at least another volume or two, and I encourage her to work on that!