Today I have a review and giveaway for the warlock tour!
Pages: Paperback, 375 pages
Published January 1st 2012 by Seven Rivers Publishing
Age Group: YA
Source: Blog Tour
Series: Waterspell book 1
Challenge(s): Ebook challenge, Young adult reading challenge, 150+ reading challenge, Witches and withcraft challenge, YA/MG fantasy challenge
Summary(from Goodreads):
Drawn into the schemes of an angry wizard, Carin glimpses the place she once called home. It lies upon a shore that seems unreachable. To learn where she belongs and how to get there, the teenage traveler must decipher the words of an alien book, follow the clues in a bewitched poem, conjure a dragon from a pool of magic — and tread carefully around a seductive but volatile, emotionally scarred sorcerer who can’t seem to decide whether to love her or kill her.
| This was a good read. I really enjoyed the story and I liked watching it unfold and grow as the book went on. That’s how I felt about Waterspell, the story just keeps getting bigger and bigger. It’s like an iceberg, with 90% of its mass being underwater, I feel like I still have only seen the tip. I totally understand what the main character, Carin kept saying. Just when she finds one things out there are at least two more questions that come to her mind. This book left things so open that I could see it really turing into a long series.
I really really liked Carin. She is strong willed and stubborn, yet caring. She knows how to look out for herself because she has to. As someone who considers herself to be a pretty independant person, I really respect that trait in people. She was a little too nosey for her own good, and it got her into trouble because she is not the sneakiest person around, but somehow it all just fit her. It’s hard to explain, but I just felt like Carin was a really well developed character and all the parts of her personality complemented each other and it just worked. I was a little bummed that there was no romance at all in the story. I thought something might happen with the stable boy but he was surprisingly absent for almost all of the story.
My favorite part of the book is that the “puzzle book” that the warlock cannot read is “through the looking glass”! I Alice in Wonderland, so it was really cool to see it incorporated as a mysterious and powerful book. (I reccomend anyone that has not read through the looking glass to read it immediately) I am dying to find out if this book has some sort of deeper involvement. I think it does, but this book is pretty vague on things like that. You don’t really get any solid answers that you can “hang your hat on”.
While I did enjoy this story and am interested in reading the second book in the series to see where it goes, I would have liked a few more questions to have been answered in this first installment. It’s odd, in a way so much happened in this book, but on the other hand I felt like we made only a little overall progress. If that even makes sense. But Carin and the warlock have so much potential to go on some really cool adventures and journeys and I really want to see something epic develop. All of the groundwork has been laid in this first book, so I am thinking and hoping that the second book just picks up where this one left off and runs with it!
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| 3/5 gavels
Author Bio
Castles in the cornfield provided the setting for Deborah J. Lightfoot’s earliest flights of fancy. On her father’s farm in West Texas, she grew up reading extraordinary tales of adventure and reenacting them behind tall ramparts of sun-drenched corn. She left the farm to earn a bachelor of science degree in journalism and write award-winning books of history and biography, including The LH7 Ranch (University of North Texas Press) and Trail Fever (William Morrow, New York). High on her Bucket List was the desire to try her hand at the genre she most admired. The result is WATERSPELL, a complex, intricately detailed fantasy that begins with Book 1: The Warlock and Book 2: The Wysard, and concludes (for the present) with Book 3: The Wisewoman. But a legal pad filled with notes and tucked away in a desk drawer suggests a possible Book 4 before the saga may fairly be said to be finished.
Deborah is a professional member of The Authors Guild. She and her husband live in the country south of Fort Worth, Texas. Find her online at www.waterspell.net.
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I have one ecopy of the warlock to a lucky reader! Just read my contest policy and enter the rafflecopter below.
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a Rafflecopter giveaway
*Disclosure of Material Connection: I am a member of Reading Addiction Blog Tours and a copy of this book was provided to me by the author. Although payment may have been received by Reading Addiction Blog Tours, no payment was received by me in exchange for this review. There was no obligation to write a positive review. All opinions expressed are entirely my own and may not necessarily agree with those of the author, publisher, publicist, or readers of this review. This disclosure is in accordance with the Federal Trade Commision’s 16 CFR, Part 255, Guides Concerning Use of Endorcements and Testimonials in Advertising*
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Thanks for your review (and the givaway)! I really want to read this book!
Thanks for the review, Michelle, and for hosting a stop on my blog tour.
All best, Deborah
http://www.waterspell.net
Thanks for the review!! sounds interesting! thanks for the chance to win!
Sounds like an interesting book and thanks for the giveaway.
I am intrigued by how she has to decipher the code of the alien book and uncover the riddles of the poem. I love word play!
This sounds interesting..and i love quest type books, the whole Alice in Wonderland aspect sounds cool..I love that tale too! Awesome review and thanks for the giveaway!
Such a lovely vibrant color for the cover tho I have to admit what caught my interest was the mention of conjuring up a dragon. I’m such a sucker for anything remotely dragon =)
your review makes me want to read this book, very muchly
Lately I’ve been into novels with a love/hate type of relationship so based on the summary this seems like the kind of book for me, plus I always love books with magic. Thanks for the chance to win a copy!
thanks for the chance to win. would love to read this book
I like the sound of Carin. Sounds like a fun read. Thanks for the giveaway.
Also, just a quick question. The ‘disclosure’ that you’ve included, is it necessary to be including this with all reviews? I’m a fairly new blogger, and have been asked by authors to read and review their work. Should I be including this disclosure please? Thanks 🙂
Thanks for the review! This sounds like a great book, and I can’t wait to read it!
Sounds like a book I would like! A stubborn but caring main character! LOL I love that! <3
Thanks for the giveaway!
Thanks for the giveaway…I’m with Linda who commented above – you say “dragon,” you’ve got me!! I have been seeing this book pop up in other places and would be interested in reading it for sure.
I love your comparison of the story to an iceberg and I agree that stories like that just keep getting better the more you dig into them.
Sounds like an interesting book. Thanks for the chance.
I think Waterspell definitely sounds interesting and I would really like to read it, but sometimes I do get frustrated when questions are not answered LOL Thanks for sharing today, it is always good to know ahead of time when this might occur 😉