I liked the book, but it didn’t jump out for me. It was a nice fantasy read, but nothing I hadn’t seen before.

A fantastic enigma of sci-fi and fantasy that combines all the action i love about the two genres. Written well, it depicts a heart pounding story about a mythological world! I utterly enjoyed my time reading it.

Beautifully written fantasy novel. I loved how the author paid little details to help bring the world to life in your minds. Everything was given attention and love in this well crafted story. As is with all epic fantasy books there is the good side and the dark, and the author goes of her way to craft complexity in each one. A bad guy is not always solely bad and the history and intricacies depicted through both the story telling and the well placed flashbacks goes a long way to making the characters come to life. All important details to any well crafted recipe for an entertaining fantasy story. However the book was written and geared towards younger readers and at times I lost focus while reading it however that is not the fault of the author so much as targeted audience. There was also a bit of inconsistency on supporting characters values and decisions but all in all a decent first book with potential.

The Namarielle was a difficult book to review for me. I did finish it but it was a bit of a chore and I should have DNF'd when I wasn't enjoying it.

I wanted to like this more than I ended up liking it. It had so much potential but I found it to be exhausting to read. The shift in perspectives made it feel jumpy to me and while I enjoyed the world and characters that the author created, I didn't feel like the story lived up to it's potential. There was nothing there that really held my attention for very long and this took me awhile to work through. Not my favorite but interesting enough to finish.

I really struggled to connect to the characters in this one which in turn meant I struggled to connect to the story

This book was well written but I just couldn't connect with any of the characters in this story. You might love it, please don't let review stop you from giving it a try. Thank you BooksGoSocial via NetGalley for the free copy. All opinions expressed are my own.

The Namarielle are the Cornerstone of the Land
Howdy there fellow bibliophiles! It’s been awhile since I’ve posted; I put myself on maternity leave since I just could not focus on any book no matter how hard I tried! I would never want to do a book or author an injustice…so I spent a month mindlessly looking at magazines while my daughter napped, and my Kindle got a little dusty…but now I’m back, and happy to post about The Namarielle by Julien E. Jamar as my first step back into the ocean of reviewing.

The Namarielle were the ruling family of the land of Lashai, prior to being brutally murdered in their sleep by a warrior people known as the Fontre. For many years it was thought that all of the Namarielle Image result for couple in a forest gifhad been killed, as evidenced by the land sickening and dying in many areas, with no sovereign to keep it whole and flourishing. When the Namarielle cries, it rains, when they are angry the wind roars…and what the Fontre had failed to understand, is that they were the cornerstone of the land, and without them, death and decay would set in over time. Yet, in a small borderland community an illegal garden was thriving, and animals seemed to prosper…so perhaps the murderous rampage had not been as successful as previously believed.

The Namarielle is an engrossing and enjoyable book, with richly developed peoples and characters, and a well detailed back story. I didn’t mind staying up late each night to sneak in some reading time, because it moves along so quickly, and rarely gives you a good stopping point because the plot and character development is constant. For the most part the main characters are perfectly nuanced, being neither wholly good nor evil, although at times the romance between the two See the source imagecentral characters, Elian and Cassai, was a little bit too innocent and naïve (but of course the upside to that is, this book is appropriate for all ages). Predictably, the book ends on a cliff hanger, with Cassai receiving her first kiss, followed by dire circumstances for one of the main characters, which pits the others in a race against time to save them. As the final scenes play out, we are introduced to the character who may be the ultimate cornerstone: the Hermit, who bears a more than passing resemblance to God (or the Weaver as he is called in Lashai). The Hermit urges Cassai to give up everything, including Elian, to follow him.

The Namarielle is a story of love and loss, the importance of friendships and family, and above all else, the value of justice and fairness. It is the job of the Namarielle to bring order and balance to the land, and only the subsequent books will tell if Cassai is up to the challenge.

I loved the world building that went into setting everything in place for the rest of the series.
The story intrigued me from the synopsis and the moves at a good pace to keep that interest.
I look forward to the sequel

The world building was really well done in this book and characters are unique. I would definitely read a sequel.

I tried with this one, I really did. But in the end this just wasn’t my cup of tea. Honestly, I was just so bored reading it and I felt a complete disconnect with what was going on. None of the characters really captured my interest and I found myself not really caring one way or the other what happened to them. I also had kind of a hard time wrapping my head around this universe? I understood the general rules of it, but there were so many terms and names thrown around that got jumbled up in my head. Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to read this, but it just wasn’t for me.

DNF. I tried...I tried so hard and wanted to really get absorbed into this world but I fell flat on my face and could not do it.I was bored, so very bored that I gave up and will not be picking it back up. Maybe it was the author's writing style that I was not adept to? But, there are so many others that really enjoyed this book, so please check out their reviews too!

Thank you to netgalley I received this as an ARC. I enjoyed it very much was good solid read. Solid 4.5 Stars for me!

I love when a book has a well developed fantasy world, and this definitely had that. The book had a good pace (not too fast, not too slow) and gave me all the great twists that I always love. Such a really great read!

Hmm this one was kind of a hard one for me. I had a rough time getting into it, despite putting it down and picking it back up on several occasions. I wasn't super invested in the main characters or the story line. The world building was interesting, but not enough for me to truly be immersed in this world. I would maybe come back and try to read this one again once the second one is out. Overall, this one wasn't quite for me.

It took me a while to get into this, it was written like an old style fairytale which i struggled with. However, the overall book is enjoyable. The author writes a believable world and characters that are easy to bond with.

Not my favourite read of the year and I probably wont continue with the series but if you like fairytales, young love and good v evil then its worth a read.

It took me a while to get around to reading this what with work and life getting in the way, but I am so glad I finally managed it. This book was brilliant. I read it in a couple of days and it had me gripped. I liked the writing style, the world building and I found the characters easy to read and like!

I will be recommending this book :)

I'm having a hard time with this one. I just can't make myself care about the characters or the storyline. I feel like I've read it sooooooo many times before, and in this one it's just not tripping my interest. Maybe down the line if I feel the need to get into an epic-style (but with less epicness), I'll come back to it. For now, alas, it's a no from me.

Not really sure how to review this book. The premise is good, though somewhat predictable. The pacing was decent. The world building was not bad. I liked the variety of fantasy elements. Most of the characters are likeable but not well developed.
Unfortunately, I really did not like the main characters, Cassai and Elian. Cassai's supposedly a sheltered 18 years old, seemed more like an annoying 13-14 year old to me. She's supposedly adventurous, but again seemed too naive to have ventured much. Can't figure out Elian. Sometimes he seems like he's in his 30s, sometimes he seems like he is in his teens. These ambiguousness make these characters unrelatable.
The only character I liked was Hollis.
Not sure I'm curious enough to pick up the next book.

I adored this book. It was full of intrigue and passions and was just beautifully written. definitely something to add to your tbr pile if you enjoy this genre.