“A novel that celebrates life and love the way only the best fantasy tales can.” -Kirkus Reviews
SEEKING LOVE, REVENGE, AND A CURE FOR DEATH…
In this thrilling fantasy adventure, sixteen-year-old Tessa Skye shapeshifts into a sparrow using a windrider—a forbidden magical amulet. When she accidentally reveals herself to the wicked Conjurer Lord Fellstone, the tyrant has her papa killed. Overcome by guilt and remorse, Tessa sets out for the castle to steal Fellstone’s Dreadmarrow, his most prized magical artifact, which has the power to restore life. She’s joined by Calder, searching for his lost love, and Ash, whose growing attraction to Tessa distracts from his plan to avenge his murdered twin.
DREADMARROW THIEF is an enchanting coming-of-age story about a girl who seeks to wield great power, only to learn it comes at a terrible price.
“The quest narrative is exciting and compelling… a work of classic fantasy.” -The BookLife Prize
Book Overview:
Author: Marjory Kaptanoglu | Series: The Conjurer Fellstone Series | Format: eBook – ARC | Length: 225 pages | Publish Date: October 9, 2017 | Genre: YA Fantasy | Rated: ★ ★ ★ | Recommend: Maybe
“Even Ryland often told me how he loved that I wasn’t a “typical” girl, but I rejected the notion that girls were all of a type instead of each being unique.”
Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
I usually love fantasy books, and I feel like my bookshelves are full of them. However, for some reason, I just wasn’t able to get into this one as I would have liked.
One of the facts that I thought was cool was the idea that an item can make someone change into an animal. In the beginning of the book, the main character Tessa is in the form of a sparrow, thanks to an amulet called a “windrider”. She’s not an expert in using it by any means, but she has learned quickly how to use it to her advantage. Her entire world changes when her father is murdered brutally in front of her eyes, and she is almost captured by the evil Lord Fellstone and his cronies. However, she is able to escape, and it’s up to her, a shady fortune teller name Calder, and a boy named Ash to figure out a way to save her father from being permanently dead. They have to do all of that without being killed themselves.
I was glad that Ash was the one that went on the adventure rather than Tessa’s almost husband Ryland. That dude was a complete coward, and he wasn’t even that good of a swordsman. I think I would have been disappointed if it was Ryland that went on this adventure, as I feel like he would have been pretty much useless. The story is written well, and the pace is there, but I just couldn’t appreciate it the way I wanted to.
Now that doesn’t mean that I don’t think you shouldn’t read it. To each their own, and while I may not have loved it, I didn’t hate it either. I would say give it a chance, and you can come to your own conclusion. I may read the next book that comes out just so I can know what happens next.
Author Spotlight
Courtesy of Goodreads
Born: in Cohasset, MA, The United States
September 03
Genre: Fantasy, Young Adult
Influences: J.R.R. Tolkien, J.K. Rowling, George R.R. Martin, Philip Pullman, Jonathan Stroud
Goodreads Member Since: March 2015
Marjory Kaptanoglu is a produced screenwriter and novelist. The indie films based on her scripts have screened at international film festivals, including Santa Barbara, Woodstock, San Diego, Nashville, and Cinequest. Her screenplays have won First Place awards at the Slamdance Film Festival, Table Read My Screenplay, the International Horror & Sci-fi Film Festival, and the Harlem International Film Festival, and have been recognized by the Academy Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting. She co-wrote the feature film, SLANDER, a political thriller adapted from Christopher Bram’s novel, GOSSIP, currently in pre-production.
Marjory Kaptanoglu’s debut novel, DREADMARROW THIEF, is a semifinalist in the 2017 William Faulkner – William Wisdom Creative Writing Competition, Novel-in-Progress category, under its previous title, FELLSTONE. The screenplay version of the novel won the Grand Prize in the 2016 Cynosure Screenwriting Awards.
Before turning to writing, Marjory worked as a software engineer at Apple Computer, where she designed the text-editing software for early versions of the Macintosh. She graduated from Stanford University with a B.A. in English.
Marjory writes in many genres, probably because she also loves reading different genres. What she looks for is a good story, well-told and well-written.
Sometimes Leelynn Reads 