A Tale of the Eternal Stones: Firestone is the first in a fantasy series aimed at absolutely any age group that enjoys a good fantasy story.
Two stories run
parallel to each other and are sure to meet up sometime within the series. On
one side you have Sephonei, who has been forced into becoming a Crystal Hunter
(with the barest of training), and who has set off with Ku-aya and Abil to find
an eternal stone from a cavern just outside Atlantea.
On the other side,
you have Roeg, who lives with the Great Spirit Clan but is an outsider as he
was brought in as a child and looks different to everyone else. While battling
to find his place within the clan, Roeg is given a quest by his adopted father
and the shaman of the clan to go to the King of Gnomes, who will help him find
the Land of Darkness. Along with his clanmates Tsisa and Ookum, Roeg will
embark on a perilous journey to battle a fire demon and find the meaning of the
firestone he carries.
However, the
Crystal Hunters are after the same stone and their paths are on the verge of
colliding…
First, I must
apologise to the author for taking this long to write a review of the book. I
only recently found it again after hardware crashed and burned and a promise is
a promise!
I enjoyed the
book tremendously. I suspect the author has ties to South Africa as the terms
“eish” and “kuk (kak)” were all too familiar! And I suspect the gnome bread had
its roots in a rusk?
I liked how
Sephonei was coming into her own, and no longer the scared child she started
off as. Her quick thinking and abilities to understand her aura reading made
her an excellent empath. Ku-aya was needed to ground the trio and Abil was just
a nasty piece of work. However, I battled to understand their use of language
sometimes with dialect words like fistler, and when I saw “yaa” my mind
automatically said it was spelt incorrectly.
Roeg’s side spoke
more to me as I felt transported along with his “growth” story and how he felt
he didn’t belong anywhere, to showing his courage and being an integral part of
saving the day. He showed that trying and trying again was what was needed and
his empathy I think will somehow integrate with Sephonei’s. Tsisa’s bravery was
fun but foolish, and I enjoyed Ookum’s perseverance in trying to find his place
in the world.
I was intrigued by
the mythical creatures, and Sephonei’s recordings of them in her journal,
including the sketches. There were, however, a few grammar and punctuation
errors that stopped me a couple of times within the script. Overall, a
fantastic read and since the story ends in a place open for the next chapter, I
look forward to reading the next one!
Thanks to the author for the opportunity to
review the book (albeit eventually!).
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