Defenders of the Scroll by Shiraz

Copyright: 2008

Publisher: iUniverse
Genre: YA
Pages: 248
Challenges: New Author
New-to-me Author: Yes
Author's Website



Simple Description:
Alex has to face the toughest decision so far in his young (16 years) life, does he go to school and take his last final tomorrow or go to the audition his band member got with a music executive?  As you can guess, the dream of being a rock star won.

Thins soon change and Alex realizes that the decision he made wasn't that tough, not life or death tough.  Because, you see, during the audition he trips and falls and walks up in another world.  Or maybe it's the same world but a time in the past.  It's never clear.   His mission is to protect a young wizard princess named Dara.  Her father is the King and one of the most powerful Wizards in the kingdom. He has been captured and put all his wizardry power into a scroll that Dara has.  She uses the magic to bring Alex to her.  She was really trying to get the leader of the warriors that protect her kingdom, the Axeman, but did something wrong to get Alex instead.

Early on Alex realizes he can summon warriors from one of the books that went with him to the current world/time that he is in.  Together these warriors help Alex keep Dara save from pirates and evil shadow warriors.  At least, we assume they do, the story doesn't end with this book.

Now what you really want to know....my thoughts:
hmm what to say about this one.  Overall, a very enjoyable book that kept my interest.  Why am I uncertain about it then?  Well, the writing was a bit off to me.  Sure, I know Alex is a teenager from present day, but sometimes he annoyed me.  I think they tried to write in some of the things that kids do and say but it was so incredibly obvious and didn't flow with the story that it was annoying.  Then there was my major pet peeve, the story doesn't end.  Sure..the book ends, but he story doesn't.  They don't even find the King, which is what they set out to do.  Nope.  They survive the latest attack and them boom..end of book.  I hate that!  I realize it's done so that people will buy the next book but it tends to piss me off and make me refuse to buy the next book.   You guys know me, I love a good series, but I like the story to end and the next book to feature the same people and have another adventure.  Don't keep me hanging.   Of course, I do sometimes buy the next book because I liked it enough, but it still annoys me.

So yeah, the story was decent, kept moving, kept me guessing on what was going to happen next, but there were still things that bothered me and keep me from raving about this one.

I recommend, if you are interested, checking out the blog.  The prologue and I think the first 3 chapters are available online.  That should give you and idea on if you want to read the entire book or if it's not your cup of tea.


Thanks to the author(s) for providing this book for review.
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