Official Review: The Realm of Vallen: Battle of Brothers ...

[miss_argyle]

[Following is the official OnlineBookClub.org review of "The Realm of Vallen: Battle of Brothers Vol. 1" by Erin Azevedo.]

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2 out of 4 stars

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The Realm of Vallen, Battle of Brothers, Volume 1 by Erin Azevedo, is a fantasy quest novel. The major character is Stella, a divorced mother of two from Arizona, who wakes to find herself in a dream world called Arde. Or is it a dream? Arde has been waiting for the arrival of a dromier (dreamer) to save its four realms (Vallen, Klaas, Zomier, and Cobus) from negative life by returning it to a state of positive energy. The story moves quickly from Stella’s initial arrival to her becoming enmeshed in Arde’s struggle to cleanse itself.

I liked Stella and she is an engaging hero, who makes the reader think about what they themselves would do if suddenly thrust into a fantasy world. Stella’s self-doubt and conversations with herself about the difficulty of jumping back and forth between the real world and one that might exist only in her mind are well crafted and feel natural. Her relationship with her children and the ways she must work with their distinctive personalities also feel unforced.

The book moves back and forth between Stella’s soccer mom life in Arizona and her life as Stella of Earth, a dreamer or dromier in Arde. The author spends a little too much time in the ‘real’ world and the scenes there drag on, especially as they don’t develop the character any. The scenes where the author explains Stella’s reaction to her ex-husband seem so pointed you wonder if the author experienced divorce recently. Each scene in Arizona just seems to reinforce the same things that have been mentioned before.

Stella is underdeveloped as a character. She careens between two polar opposites. In half of the scenes she’s terrified of action, complaining about her life and lack of gumption; in others she’s overconfident, suddenly full of the ability to accomplish all that’s asked of her. There’s no real in between or learning curve, she jumps from one set of emotions to the other with little explanatory text.

Although the story flows along for the most part, there are numerous grammatical errors, especially in the use of apostrophes when making something plural or possessive. The author also has a tendency to over use adverbs such as ‘quite,’ ‘truly,’ and other unnecessary modifiers. The book could use a professional editing job.

A reader often expects a cliff hanger ending in Book 1 of a series although there is normally resolution of some of the major plot threads. The book did leave me wondering what would happen next as it ends with a climactic battle scene. But as we cannot tell who wins or loses and who lives or dies, an no other mysteries of Arde seem to be solved, I really felt like the book needed another chapter or two.

I rate this book 2 out of 4 stars. Not because I didn’t like the plot, but because this book should have been longer with a greater emphasis on character development and a greater explanation of why Stella was in Arde and what problems exist there. The book, although engaging, barely touched the surface of these issues. Readers of sword and sorcery fantasy or quest novels might enjoy this book.

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The Realm of Vallen: Battle of Brothers Vol. 1
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[gali]

A pity the book isn't tight enough as the plot seems interesting. Nice review!

[realmofvallen]

Thank you miss_argyle's for your review of my book. This is a trilogy and so there are two more books still to come. For me, my first book was an introduction to my main character and to the new world she was experiencing. As my other books come out, I feel that many of the issues which were not touched for you, will be. I did not want to give it all away in the first book:) Thank you for reading and thank you for your review.