Book Review: Desolation by Jesper Schmidt

*I received a complimentary copy of this book, and I’m leaving a voluntary review*

So here it is, my first book review, of Desolation by Jesper Schmidt. I’ll try to keep this spoiler free, but I will name some characters, and might reveal a bit more than what you get from the Amazon description. Proceed at your own risk.

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First of all, I loved this book! It’s a great fantasy read, and I finished it all in two or three sittings, which is unusual for me.

The story largely follows Aea, Ayida (two Duians, a kind of elven race), and Arkum’Sul (a type of dragonkin). But there are of course plenty of other characters we meet throughout the story, but these three are the main ones. My favourite is Arkum’Sul. He’s kind of a villian,  and kind of not. But he’s honorable and awesome, and just a great character, and I really hope we see more of him in the next book!

Aea is, I suppose, the protagonist, though she shares that role with Ayida. Aea is a badass archer that sets out to find her lost family, to set things right, and at every single turn in her adventure the world just seems to go against her.

The same can be said for Ayida. Her whole life she’s been going against the grain, and when we meet her she’s trying to follow her dreams and live the life she’s always wanted, just to have it beat her down constantly. I kind of hated that she always made the wrong decisions, (in my mind that is, in her mind they were the right decisions), but that just had me turning page after page to see how things would turn out.

What I really loved about the book, and what keeps it fresh compared to other books in the genre is that it keeps you guessing constantly. Whenever you think you know what’s coming up next, the story takes a completely different turn. I had myself thinking this a lot, and I loved it. I also really enjoyed the fast pace of the book, and how quickly characters intermingled, in what seemed to be very seperate storylines that could easily have dragged on through multiple books.

The short version: This is a great fantasy book that I’d recommend to anyone who’s a fan of the genre, and I absolutely can’t wait to read book no. 2!

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