chymerra
Written on Sep 28, 2016
**All opinions stated in this review are mine and mine alone. I received Agrathias from Conor Nicholl for free for my honest review**
Now onto my review:
This book was fantastic and I absolutely loved reading it.
The book starts off with a mystery man sitting in a tree, surrounded by these monsters called Arcams and full of grief and guilt over leading them to his village and the death of his sister. The chapter ends with a battle between him and the Arcams. See, this unknown man is a sorcerer and he controls ice. He did take out a ton of Arcams before being captured.
The next chapter, we meet Arone, a young man who is minding his own business when he approached by a strange man and is demanded to give back what is his. Of course, Arone does what any sane person would do being confronted by a weirdo….he turns around and leaves. But he gets attacked by said strange guy and injures him with fire…which startles Arone. At this point, Arone’s brother shows up and they head to the village to let the mayor know.
The mayor has a strange reaction, gives Arone an egg like object and tells him to head to the capital to talk to the king. Before that could happen, though, the Arcams attack the village. While Arone is helping defend, his parents (who disappeared mysteriously a few years back) friend tells him to go find them before getting run through by an Arcams. While escaping the village, Arone’s brother is killed and Arone witnesses the destruction of his village.
So understandably, Arone is grief-stricken. He makes it to the city and sees the king….who has the same reaction that the mayor had. The king put Arone up at a tavern and has him meet his sorcerer, Tyris.
Arone discusses magic with Tyris and he can’t understand where his fire magic comes from. That night, he goes back to the tavern and realizes that his egg like object has hatched….and it is a baby griffon. He tells Tyris, who advises him on how to handle a griffon and tells him to listen to her when she keeps showing him pictures of a man.
After that, the book gets truly epic. Arone, Aine (his griffin), Akadi (the mystery man), Abnoba (Akadi’s griffon) and a motley crew that they pick up in their adventures. I loved Lupercus and Gunnolf’s characters. Kathara, I really didn’t care for. She was too prickly for me to like. And Urana’s and the Ragmar’s characters weren’t really gotten into until almost the very end.
The adventures that crew went on where epic (well everyone but Urana…she showed up in the 2nd half of the book) and very well written. I honestly felt that I was in a quest with them all.
I did feel bad for Dogane, a little bit. While he was 100% evil, he didn’t start off that way. He was made that way by being abused by a tutor that his father hired. He did try to tell his father and his father looked the other way. It was heartbreaking reading that but it explained a lot.
The ending of the book was fantastic. All of the storylines were ended but, as the author said in a note afterwards, there are still unanswered questions that will be explored in the next book. I would love to know….what happened to Arone’s parents? Are they still alive?
How many stars will I give Agrathias? 4
Why? A great, well written fantasy novel. This book takes you away to a land where magic is the norm, griffins are real and friendships that are forged are forever.
Will I reread? Yes
Will I recommend to family and friends? Yes
Age range? Teen
Why? To be honest, I would have no problem with my 11-year-old daughter reading this book. It is very clean (no sex, no swearing) with minimal violence.