Blurb:

When Aster Rutherford, the postmaster's son and his childhood friend, Zinnia Hollyhock deliver a letter to the Pelware Mines, they are attacked by a birdlike monster that turns men to stone. Even worse, Buckwheat Village is plagued by an illness that's incapacitating villagers, including Aster's own father.

A chance encounter with Kara Reeves, the brash quartermaster of the Blue Skies, leads Aster to hitch a ride to the capital city in search of a doctor. Aster's quest takes him from the dizzying spires of New Portsmith to the caves of Munayallpa and the forests of Tembour. Along the way Aster reconnects with his estranged mother and comes face-to-face with the god of a foreign land. Can Aster and the crew of the Blue Skies overcome pirates, politics, and monsters to cure Buckwheat Village before it's too late?

Review:

Well… this is the second author who I could’ve ran into while in the states this year if I knew he was where I was. I got this novel a few weeks ago, and I enjoyed the story and plotline, with me staring at the author for the second book in the series. My review for this would’ve been out sooner, however… school got in the way and instead of reviewing, which sometimes takes as much time as reading a book on my end, I ended up reading more novels…so this is one of many that I still am going to hammer out over my fall break (it won’t be out for a week or more after my fall break ends however).. But I digress, I’m glad Alex Scheuermann sent a copy my way, and despite it being more than half a month since I’ve read it, I still remember the most crucial parts of the story.

Now, if I had a birdlike creature at my door wanting to get in and the only way to scare it off was talking about this book (hypothetically speaking, that would never happen, right?), I’d give them this snippet:

“Aster is just a child, yet he wants to save his village before more people die. But things are not as what they seem, leading him astray.”, and the question pertaining to if one wants to know more, and if the creature still wasn’t gone… well… this is the rest of that, and it’s being typed out as I slowly turn to stone. Hopefully this birdlike thing is gone soon and I can get the magic stone dust laying in the corner to cure me. If you know, you know.

To start this review off, we have the three characters - Aster Rutherford, Zinnia Hollyhock and Kara Reeves. Two of which are close friends and live in the same village and the other is a quartermaster on a ship who ends up meeting Aster in an encounter at the local tavern. Aster Rutherford is an adventurous soul, if a bit too trusting. Probably due to growing up in a small backwater town without having to worry about someone backstabbing him. What does he want? A magical quest that’ll elevate his status to a world renowned hero. Any kids dream at some point, really. But he also is looking for a cure to the disease that is plaguing the town and his father, the postmaster. It’s mostly that with the dream of heroics on the side. And trying to meet his 

Meanwhile, Zinnia Hollyhook is a bit shy, and worried about own health, and others, so she doesn’t like the whole adventuring shtick and decides to stay at home. She has some of her own adventure though and slowly grows out of her shell.

And that brings us to character number three: Kara Reeves. A quartermaster on a ship, she meets Aster in a tavern, as one does, and decides to take him with on the ship she works on. Shenanigans ensue, she gets betrayed, and at some point gets the ship back, with a more or less high stakes game of hide and seek at the end with the option to bully the seeker with a cutlass before the end.

Now, to the plot of the book. The plot that has plots within plots. Aster as the main character, with a few chapters from the other two characters, gets sent on various fetch quests to get various items in order to get the Odyllic stone to cure the village from a mysterious disease. A MacGuffin item tied to the world, yet, it is not the only thing driving the plot. Sure, everyone wants the stone, but that’s besides the point, there’s also a chalice. Aster wants to get the stone so that he can cure the villagers' plight, Kara is just going along with it because she cares and wants to keep her ship running, and Zinnia keeps hearing about it but stays at home to help people. Meanwhile, the bad guys of this book… they want it for military purposes. Why do I hear Indiana Jones music? It’s probably nothing. It winds here and there with pirate shenanigans, assassin shenanigans and various other happenings that all culminate with the ending that has several things happening, in a good way, if I remember it correctly. Since it’s been a while and I’m going off the notes I took on some graph paper, you’ll either have to take my word for it or go read it yourself. 

This then translates into the world building for which we have a map that I took another look at. This map, this map gives all the necessary details of what to expect in terms of terrain. But, there’s several things not on the map… and that of course are the creatures that inhabit the dark nooks and crannies of this world. There’s one or two or a few more, not limited to cockatrices and spirits that mess with things. And of course, the magical doohickies. There’s two, the Odyllic Stone and another object that for the rest of this review will be called thing 2. The Odyllic Stone itself is tied into the lore of the world as an object that has been used to shape the continent and make or break nations. Meanwhile, thing 2 is an object that was experimented with and is mostly just a repository of knowledge with some special properties. The special properties? Special enough that emboldens a side character to do some foolish and evil things to get it. And it helps progress the plot, in a way. Which I like. Then, there’s the magic system or lack thereof or a mixture of magic but also just the stone, creatures and thing 2 have magic. Just the stone, creatures and thing 2 have magic,  there is no magic besides that. 

Lastly, however, I have one thing to touch upon… the dialogue. Some parts work excellently. However, in other parts, I felt like it was stilted in some way, off. But considering every author has their strengths and weaknesses with their first novel, it’s to be expected that some parts would be a bit weaker than others.

Overall, if you like swashbuckling adventure, a mystery and a hunt for a magic doohickey or two, with some of it inspired by Harrison Ford in a hat and lasso, this novel is for you.

As I usually say, if you’ve made it this far, thank you for reading this long overdue review for a novel sent to me a while back, and I hope I’ve nudged you towards your next read. If not, don’t fret, we here on the SFF Insiders team have many, many, many suggestions for you to peruse. With this link here, you’ll be transported to one at random, with it either being up your alley or not, but it will give you a new novel to look at without clicking the previous or next button. Now, as for my next reviews, there will be more of similar piecemeal coherence as I frantically try to cram as much reviewing in as I sanely can, between Christmas shopping, reading and everything else. So, to those waiting for a review for their novel, thank you for your patience and I will get to your book! 

Wherever you are reading this longer review, have a good morning, good afternoon, good evening and good night!