SWORD OF FIRE AND SEA by Erin Hoffman

Due to a decades old agreement made by his great-great-grandfather, Captain Vidarian Rulorat is commissioned by the priestesshood to carry out a task for them. High Priestess Endera gives charge of a young fire priestess named Ariadel to Captain Vidarian in order to transport her safely to a water temple across the land. Due to being hunted down by a group of telepathic rebels, Ariadel and Captain Vidarian must travel through dangerous territory to reach their safe haven across the land. Little do they know, that Vidarian is the Tesseract, who can control all four elements of the nation, including the fifth theoretical element, chaos.  Now Vidarian and Ariadel must not only reach safety, but they must also navigate the centuries old conflicting prophecies destined for the Tesseract and the fate of the world.

Hey guys!! It's been a while....

So let me start off by saying, I did a video!! Its on youtube so you can totally watch that instead of reading this if you would like!!

But here we go...the review.

I personally was super disappointed in the way this book turned out. It was hard to get into, it was hard to follow and understand, and it was overall a very hard piece of literature to find appealing.

I didn't approve of the language, the layout and the progression of the story because in my opinion it was faulty and distracting. I felt like the author was trying really hard to make the voice and story sound so dated, and period driven, that it took away from the flow and readability of the book. The way things were described and worded ended up being so distracting and so hard to follow, that at times I would be so done with what was happening that I would skip paragraphs or even pages to try and get to something that made sense or that was interesting.

The progression of the story was very monotone. It didn't build and grow in a way that felt natural or even remotely interesting. Things were simply happening, they were at this place and then they went here and oh this happened but why? What are they thinking and what are they feeling? You didn't get a very intimate look into their heads or their lives throughout the progression of the story so it felt lacking. I ultimately didn't care for the characters and didn't care for the plot line.

I also felt like the characters themselves needed a lot of work. For one, you get barely any background on any of the characters except Vidarian, and there's practically nothing if at all. Whatever you do know about him does not drive his story, does not really affect his decisions or morality in the actions that he makes and you are left with really knowing nothing about him! I didn't know his age until the last couple chapters of the book and then I thought to myself...you know he doesn't sound like that age at all...Same with Ariadel....But with Ariadel you know NOTHING. No background...no personality traits...she is at times eccentric...but there's no real play on her personality or character to make her interesting...

This story had so much potential and I wanted it to be so great but it just left me sad and depressed! Such great material!! BUT NO. Nothing happened...I didn't care about anything they were doing or saying I just wanted to FEEL something towards their story and relationships but I didn't! There was nothing there for me to relate to or feel something about because you never had the opportunity to really understand them individually and together.

I wanted this book to be successful, and I'm sad to say that I will not be buying the sequel and I will not be recommending this for anyone else to read.

2/5.....not even that....I should really just bump it down to 1 because I know I wont be rereading this and It will forever rot on my shelf. Sad...the cover is so beautiful....sigh


IF YOU'D LIKE TO CHECK OUT THE VIDEO!!!