Star of Sakova by Richard S Tuttle

Lyra lives with her mother and father at her father's academy for magic when raiders strike killing everyone with the exceptions of Lyra and two of her friends and kidnapping her father. After hiding until the raiders have finished their work she overhears that they are looking for her to take with them as well. Lyra, Antello and Syman then set off, secretly, to her uncle's academy but end up crossing into Sakova - the land where any who enter never leave alive.

I received an offer to review this self-published book and was fascinated by a couple of things: Mr Tuttle has had quite a few books in print; the story line sounded interesting. As he is self published he must have a great deal of confidence in his stories so I couldn't really say 'no'.

My first impression of the book itself was, like most self published books, smallish print and smallish margins. I had been expecting a large tome, like so many fantasy novels, but at 300 pages it seemed quite small and now I understood why.

This is book 2 of the Forgotten Legacy series and stands well on it's own and while the prologue doesn't 'fit' the rest of the book (I suspect it is the link to the first book) feel free to skip this, although at 2 pages in length why bother, just read it anyway.

I quickly got into reading the story and found that the characters are introduced at a very manageable rate and the plot moves constantly. Something that I found strange and very enjoyable, was that although Lyra is the heroine there are many other characters in the plot that have as significant a role and the book does not revolve around one character. It would be very time consuming to say everything I liked about this book and you would get very bored but one thing I did like is that I am a reader that tends to pick a book up, read a couple of pages, put it down and go and do something else before returning for the next few pages. Frequently this means that at one reading session very little happens but with Star of Sakova this was not the case and it made putting the book down more difficult and easier to do. Does that make sense? It also had the effect of hurrying me back as well. I am told I need to ensure a balance to this review to ensure the reader of this review knows how much I enjoyed it. I cannot say too many times and how much I did enjoy it!

I really enjoyed this book and recommend it to fantasy readers of all ages. The font and layout may put off younger readers, but this story is totally accessible to readers of all ages. The plot is not mind stretching and convoluted, if anything it's simple but well written and fast moving and is as good a plot as the Potter boy's and, if anything, a little more satisfying.

I had two disappointments with this book. The first was the final proof reading was not the quality of a publishing house - but I have commented about this on self published books before. At this point I would make an open invitation to Mr Tuttle- If this is typical of your writing then I would be happy to do a FINAL proof read on your behalf to try to see if anything is missed on future publications.

The second disappointment was the last line of the last page where it said "The End"! I wanted more!

Publisher - Richard S Tuttle
Genre - fantasy, adventure 9+

Buy Star of Sakova (Forgotten Legacy) from Amazon