Calasade: Blood Isle by Mark Stone #whatImreading

Are you searching for something new to read?

Then stop by for a moment and read. You won’t be disappointed!

Take a look at this beautiful cover…

The beautiful cover of Blood Isle by Mark Stone

This is the cover of the incredible book I just finished reading. I was given an ARC copy of this book in exchange of an honest review and I’m only sorry that it took me so long to read it (stupid life!).

The first adjective that comes to my mind thinking about this book is different. I am passionate about novels in general and fantasy in particular and I have read many many books, but I’ve never met something like this. This novel is set in Calasade, a Greco Roman Fantasy world. As the author, Mark Stone, says, it has enough in common with Ancient Rome to sound familiar, but it’s also original and unique in its own way. Blood Isle is one episode of many that take place in Calasade world, but it can be read as a stand alone story.

Blood Isle has everything you may want in a novel.

There’s action, right from the beginning, and it’s something that grabs the readers attention from the first page. There are mistery and investigation, and the tension is always high. There’s a touch of magic. There are struggles, both inner and outer. And there’s love.

As a reader, I learnt to expect certain things from a fantasy novel: a great danger for the world and its order, a villain who seeks some form of power and a hero who, willingly or unwillingly, undertakes the voyage to defeat the enemy. Well, this time the danger and the enemy are not clear from the beginning, the reader explores this new world without really knowing who is the bad guy and what he wants and this make you read the entire novel with a different perspective. Moreover the hero, Caderyn, is one of the most unwilling and troubled heroes I’ve ever read about. This adds another layer to the story, because along the way he has to fight his own demons (which are strong and dangerous enough).

The pace of the narration is good, not so fast that you get lost and not so slow that you get bored by details. The main issue that slowed my reading a little was language (but it’s my problem because English is not my mother language). The mixture of English, Latin and Latin-like words adapted to sound more familiar to English-speaking persons is sometimes a little difficult for me, but it’s just a matter of getting used to it (which happens after a couple of chapters).

Then the epilogue… what to say about the epilogue? Really, I didn’t expect nothing like that! (NOSPOILERSNOSPOILERS)

Plus: this book has beautiful illustrations which add an incredible value.

On the whole this novel is interesting and innovative, moreover introduces the reader in a world he can find in other novels such as Wayward (you can read it for free!), Foolish Endeavors and Strife.

Learn more at http://www.authormarkstone.com/!

Now tell me… did I managed to catch your attention?

What are you reading at present?

Let me know in the comments!