The D'Karon Apprentice: Book of Deacon #4

Edit: Google won't let me break this into paragraphs. I have added 10 underscores (spaces didn't work) and a "#" to the end of each original paragraph in hopes of making things a little clearer._____#_____Full Disclosure: I was a recipient of a free, advance copy of this book. That said, Joseph's instructions required I promise to leave an honest review, so that's absolutely what this is._____#_____I'll jump right in with the best part of this book: Turiel. In my mind, she may be the deepest, most nuanced and multi-dimensional character that Joseph has created. Through the majority of the narrative, I had little idea what she would do next. As the story unfolded and the reasoning behind her actions became more defined, I found myself feeling sympathetic to her position - sometimes even secretly hoping she'd emerge victorious in some way._____#_____That said, I felt that the other characters were showing their age. Joseph has progressed significantly as an author and storyteller since the original trilogy, and has since created some great characters who live outside of a simple black-and-white definition. In this story, however, it regularly seemed that the Chosen (and their counterparts from the original books) were too singly focused on their originally-defined dimension. With such clearly established motives, there was rarely any guessing as to what they would say and/or do in a given situation. When contrasted against Turiel, that missing level of depth became all the more apparent._____#_____One other issue I had with this book was the pacing. The setup and basic trilogy recap took about 1/3 of the story before things really started getting interesting for me. While broken into several, clearly outlined scenes, the chapters felt long, and the delineation they offered didn't really seem any more important than that of the individual sections._____#_____Continuing with ways in which Joseph has progressed, the action sequences were much clearer to me than those of the trilogy. During my first read of those stories, there were several situations in which I found myself getting lost in the characters' movements through the massive battle set pieces - having to backtrack several pages to regain my mental footing. I only encountered a similar situation one time in this whole story, and it didn't take me hardly any effort to resume immersion once I found where I'd gotten off track._____#_____What keeps bringing me back to Joseph's work is that his stories are great. The worlds and mythologies are engaging, and the characters are often memorable. The grammar and editing are always top notch and his writing style is clear and accessible to a wide audience. The D'Karon Apprentice fits excellently alongside his other offerings, both in and out of this particular series._____#_____Bottom Line: If you've read the other books in this setting - especially the main trilogy - you will not be disappointed. If you haven't, go buy the Anthology and start reading from the beginning, then come back to this one thereafter for an interesting continuation to the original saga.

A fantastic novel. Sequel to the Deacon Trilogy. It was a beautiful story of love, hardships after war and the struggles to overcome emotional in differences. Not to mention the wizards, dragons, magic and combat. I hope there will be a sequel to the sequel.

Thank you Joseph so much for sharing your imagination with us! I was fortunate enough to be able to pre-review this book. Not only that, (not being very technically savvy) Joseph was able to add it to my account for me. So far, I have read everything of his that I have gotten my hands on and enjoyed them all. Great rythem from one book to the next. I can't wait to see what's next on the list!