Ainavel: Episode 1 - The Curse of Two Houses

I am very intrigued by the premise; however, the execution was not particularly well done. The plot was all over the place throughout the episode, and all in all, there was a ton of info dump. I also wish there was a map- the narrative often referenced many areas in the realm but I had no idea where or how far the characters were traveling. The idea was good, but there needed to be more world-building and character development. Although it is one episode in a series, I still feel a lot of this could have been done. Lastly, the blurb on Netgalley and Goodreads did not really encapsulate what happened in the first episode, which was a bit disappointing.

I'm not the biggest fan of book in episode but I decide to try it nonetheless to explore this format a bit more. I love the world and the story. I do think that the author has room to grow and evolve to develop his style and craft a bit more. It was good but it could have been better to!

While I liked the description of this book and the cover was intriguing, I could not get into it and did not finish reading it.
I liked the concept but there was too much information about places and the history of this fantasy world. So many in fact, that it felt like an information dump at the beginning and I quickly lost track of the plot, the characters, the locations and the history. I really wanted to like this book but I didn't :(

I'm really torn between a two and a three star due to the amazing potential this book had.

"As the old tale says, two powerful Houses ruled all of Erydan once. Their representatives protected northern borders from the outer darkness and the creatures of Chaos. The Great War destroyed this order many centuries ago...Now the sun is dying and the Mysterious Void is circling around the Five Lands of Erydan."

So this premise sounds amazing. Yes, it is. But the execution let it down.

We follow Ainavel from when he is a boy, then it time jumps (not sure how long) to when he is aboard his father's ship sailing dangerous seas and we follow his journey from there. There's really not any character building, it's just he did this, he did that, he had some vague feelings.

This is a really short book but it could have easily been 500+ pages. It definitely reads more like a play, with lots of dialogue and info dumping which is so overwhelming and confusing, that I didn't really have a clue what was going on for the most part.

The writing was awkward and clunky with all of the main character's thoughts in question marks and a lot of exclamation marks used. I didn't mesh with the writing style at all. There was also a lot of telling instead of showing.

This book could have been so much longer if it was properly fleshed out with proper world building. Some flashbacks instead of telling us the history would have been amazing!

Saying all this, the world in this seems SO interesting. And the history, again, SO interesting and such a good idea for a book. It had so much potential and could have been a five star book. The premise is definitely five star material.

The premises of this book were really exciting. The characters themselves and the plot of the 'episode' definitely have a lot of promise. However, the delivery of the novel made enjoyment difficult. The pace is incredibly quick and quite a lot is imparted through 'information dump' which takes away from the originality of the story. Character development could be better as could dialogue between the characters. This would be a great story if it was fleshed out a little more and the characters were given back-story and arcs.