SPFBO (Cassidy's Version)

This book pleasantly surprised me with some of the conversations we had in it.

However I do think it lacked a little bit of definition in terms of characters and world building. I liked both of these aspects but kept wanting more. I'm hoping we get a lot of this in the second book and I will be continuing.

Because there are a lot of fun aspect in this story. I really liked the magic binded creatures/ppl !

If you want my full thoughts since I know this isn't the best written review. There's a vlog on my channel

https://youtu.be/yeAVfoZmVkg

I read this book as part of a commitment to read all the finalists of SPFBO8, however it is not one that I would normally pick up off my own back, and so, out of fairness, I am not going to give it a star rating.

Being honest, this is one of the SPFBO8 finalists that I thought had a pretty good chance at working for me, even though I only picked it up for the competition and not because the synopsis drew me in.

I felt in the beginning that I was starting a few chapters in, and had missed some of the explanation, the introduction of characters and relationships etc. Most of this did start to pull together before too long, but I was still left feeling that I hadn't read the start of the actual book.

I liked the magic, with the tethered spirits of the title, and then there is the interesting curse afflicting one of the POV characters as well. I think the latter was mostly well handled, but then I started to feel conflicted by it. On the one hand, I felt that it started to drag on a bit, that the story was revolving around trying to find a cure for the curse and the particular effects being suffered after early events, but then, when solutions were found, I realised that I had no interest at all in the replacement storyline.

There are two character "groups" here, the main group I thought were mostly decent characters, while the "chase" group, if it can be called a group, just didn't work for me and so those POV chapters held little interest.

I felt that where most books build to an ending, this one started to peter off at around the 60-70% mark, and what came after that just wasn't enough to grip me, so overall, it was very much a middle-of-the-road book.

https://youtu.be/VhDGy1jXbH4

There were parts of this story that I enjoyed. I thought the magic system was very interesting, but I definitely wanted more of a dive into the hows and whys of the way it worked. I felt that the characters were very one note, and needed a lot more depth and substance to their backstory and personalities. I was hoping to see a lot of growth, and unfortunately this was not the case. I liked the plot, but found it to be very repetitive. We would go one place, talk to someone, tell them who to talk to next, repeat. There was almost no conflict until the very end, making it just way too easy on the characters and not keeping me as engaged. Overall, I didn't dislike this story and might continue with the series to see what happens next and how the author improves.ption text goes here

https://youtu.be/vzKV0JzEGHQ

https://youtu.be/R6cVYShxAow

This book has a ton of potential, as the world is so cool!! I love the spirit tarjas! And, I love the deeper discussions happening in this book about culture and religion and societal norms. I think the work it did with xenophobia and immigration was really well done and added enough complexity to the world for it to feel well rounded and real. I also really liked two of the three point of views, Kesari and Aleida. I think Kesari’s distrust of magic and Aleida’s moral grayness were very interesting and kept me intrigued about their plot lines.

My main issue comes from the focus of the story, which is Amar and his curse. I hated Amar as a character. I will keep my specific thoughts to myself, as I don’t want to get into spoilers. But I found his character exhausting to read about, repetitive, and flat. The issue with despising his character is that the entire plot hinges around him and every other character’s arc is dominated by their relationship to him. There is no escaping Amar, and every aspect of the book that Amar was involved in was weaker due to it. I did not believe any of the friendships, and I did not care about the driving force of the plot.

I also have an issue with how little I know about the magic system. I have no idea how it works and wished there was more conversations about the magic in the book. If I had known more about the magic, I would better be able to recognize when a character is being especially impressive or reaching their limits. This would have added some necessary stakes to the combat scenes. But without understanding the limitations of the magic, the combat scenes had no tension.

Overall, a wonderful world with great side characters. But the main character and the magic system pulled the book down to a 2.5 for me. I will not be continuing on in the series.

The unique world and magic system has me curious for more. I feel like this story has an excellent foundation to be a fantastic fantasy series. There are a few areas that could have been more fleshed out but overall I enjoyed my experience and will continue to book two.

So what worked for me?

Worldbuilding: The most interesting part of this world was the magic and the mysterious in the world. I would have liked a more fleshed out explanation but I am still very much intrigued on how it will progress.

What did not work for me?

Characters: The characters felt like the weakest part of the story for me. I would have liked for more detail and fleshed out motivations and feelings.

Similar Media?

This was a pretty unique story so no recommendations come to mind.

Score: 6.4/10

Character: 5

Plot: 7

World-Building: 7

Writing: 7

Enjoyment: 6

TETHERED SPIRITS by T.A. Hernandez is the first installment in the author’s Curse of Shavhalla series. We are following three main characters, each on an important journey. Amar is an old man who appears young, suffering under a curse that prevents him from dying but wipes out all of his memories each time he dies and comes back. He is travelling with friends in search of answers and a way to end the curse.⁠

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Kesari is a Tarja, one bound to a magical spirit which gives her access to magic that is powerful, but dangerous. Scarred from her past, Kesari wants to find a way to break her bond. Aleida is following Amar, hoping that the magic which keeps him from dying will help her terminally ill brother.⁠

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I really enjoyed my time reading this book and I was immediately interested in the characters and their backstory along with the world and its creatures. When we meet Amar, he is traveling with people who know some of his back story, but not all of it. His origins are unknown as is the reason behind the curse on him.⁠

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I always love found family aspects in books and this one definitely shows this development. There are also a lot of complicated family relationships and we can see interplay between the biological family and found family.⁠

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I liked the overall magic system in this book as there are costs to gaining and using power. No one character has all of the answers immediately at their disposal and this creates reasons for the characters to make the journeys they make.⁠

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My favorite part of the world was the spirit creatures, a fire spirit and a dragon spirit. I enjoyed the way these creatures were useful for character and plot development and had personalities of their own. I did think there could have been a little more development here.⁠

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I overall found this to be a very fun read and it left me very curious to see where the story takes us given how this ended and will be picking up the next installment!⁠

https://www.instagram.com/p/CqLcpqkvMef/