Book Review: "The Initiate" by Jenny Sandiford

 

Dark magic always comes with a price…

Desperate for a cure for her Shadow Magic that’s spiraling out of control, eighteen-year-old Azalea Sharp steps into the hidden forest deep within the English countryside.

What she finds is the opposite, a way to control magic, and from an unlikely source—her dead father. But she must be willing to pay the price and raise him from the dead.

With her father’s enemies on her doorstep, she is driven into hiding among a secret community of Mages in the Tower of London. There, Azalea quickly learns that not all magic is equal.

But with more than her own life at stake, will the help of a notorious Shadow Mage be enough?

Or will darkness unleash its brutal force on London, leaving no one safe? - from Booksirens.com

Thank you to Booksirens.com and the publisher/author, for allowing me an ARC  for me to provide a honest opinion of this book.

This is Book one of the The Shadow Atlas series, and the plot synopsis sounded good to me. However, once I started reading, I was let down. Right from the beginning, our main character is ahving issues with her magic, has ashort "meeting" with her dead father, who says she can help him return from teh dead with her magic....and then I put the book down. I was only maybe 40 page turns in, but I just could not get into the story. I felt that this being listed as an adult fantasy was not true - reading it I felt like I was back in high school. Characters had no depth at all, and it was like the author was telling the happenings from a dream, that just flitted from place to place.

I did not finish the book, even after trying to go back to it after a few days, therefore, no rating will be given. I do like the plot synopsis, and would like to see some more in-depth story-telling about the characters, and the world. I may not have gotten in far enough to see what the different types of magic were like ro able to do, but that is another aspect to consider as well.

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Initiate is a spellbinding new adult urban fantasy and the first book in the Shadow Atlas series.

A must-read fantasy filled with dangerous secrets, entwined lives, and forbidden magic. Perfect for those seeking a darker, university aged Harry Potter and for fans of The Mortal Instruments.