REVIEW: Into the Crooked Place & Once and Future.
Into the Crooked Place:
Into the Crooked Place is the story of Tavia Syn. Tavia lives in the city of Creije capital where magic and chaos occupy the city. She is a survivor and from the streets so she makes whatever out of herself that she can, hiding many tricks up her sleeve whilst doing so. Unfortunately for her, she has a debt to pay and so sells dark magic on the streets for a kingpin who has her life debt. Tavia is counting down the days that she can be free whilst always trying to stay clear of crooks and criminals. But whilst working for the Kingpin, she discovers he has a plan to destroy her home town and those that live in it. Determined to stop him, she risks her own life and debt to join up with an unlikely team of crooks who embark on a quest to stop the Kingpin and dark magic to save the realm but even if that happens, can they even trust each other whilst on this journey?
I read Christo’s previous book, to kill a kingdom, and fell in love with it but this one was magical but not what I was looking for at the time of reading. Unfortunately, because of that, it made me think that I didn’t like this much as I thought I would but I will gladly read the sequel or possibly reread this at some other point.
3 out of 5 stars.
Once and Future:
Once and Future is an Arthurian legend retelling with a twist. It is both genderbent and set in space. Our main character is called Ari. Ari is running away from something that she doesn’t want to talk about and is a refugee from the planet Ketch. Whilst on the run she pulls a sword from a tree. This sword is the Excalibur and by pulling it from the tree, she has awakened the latest cycle of the Arthurian legend, meaning that she is now the ‘one true king’. This comes a long with the enchantress Morgana rearing her head and Merlin, the backward-aging magician. Both of these Arthurian legends are stuck in an doomed cycle of reliving and retelling the same story of King Arthurs rise and fall. At first, she rejects this idea but comes to find that this thing that has landed in her plate might get her through the things that she has been running from, mainly Mercer company who has her mother and are threatening to kill those that she loves. She must decide what to do with this power and whether or not to use it.
This book was not the greatest, I’m not gonna lie. I received this book as a gift from a friend who was unhauling it. Their overall consensus was that it wasn’t bad but not good either so I had it from her hearing that it might possibly be a good read, well it wasn’t. The premise itself sounds amazing but other than that, the execution of the writing made it less than interesting.
2 stars out of 5.