Just a quick disclaimer before we get started, I’m doing this review as part of a blog tour organised by Rachel’s Random Resources, this isn’t the first time I’ve had the chance to take part in one of these, if you’d like to check out the other times I’ve taken part then click here or here. Anyway I just want to say that even though I’m taking part in this blog tour you should still expect the same level of level of quality, honesty and objectivity that I bring to all of my reviews.
Okay now that I’ve covered that, let me tell you a little about the author, Heidi Catherine. She’s an award winning fantasy author who lives in Australia, splitting her time between Melbourne and the Mornington Peninsula. Her debut novel, The Soulweaver (which has two sequels that you can check out here and here) won a Romance Writers of Australia’s Emerald Pro award, and she was also a four time finalist in the Romance Writers of Australia’s Little Gems competition. If you’d like to find out more about Heidi then check out her website, and make sure and show support by following her on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Lastly before we get started with the actual review, a little about the book itself, it’s Young Adult Fantasy and was published by Sequel House on the 6th April 2019. Now I don’t usually like fantasy, or at least it’s not a genre to which I’m a huge fan but even before I read this one I liked the title and the cover design enough to be curious, and hopefully the same can be said for you. The The Whisperers of Evernow, is the first book in the The Kingdoms of Evernow series. The Whispers of Evernow tells the story of a whisperer, someone stripped of their identity, even their right to free speech, all they can do is serve the desires of the King whose death grip on his kingdom only grows. But things change and love blooms.
As I mentioned up top, I find it harder as I get older to engage with fantasy, I’m not entirely sure why, because I still enjoy the classics like Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter but I have the hardest time relating to new fantasy, in fact you can read the most recent time I was excited about a fantasy book here. But even a few pages in I was excited by this, it’s not just that it’s well written although that’s an important factor, but it’s fresh, the story doesn’t seem to much like anything else and I was genuinely riveted by the plot, I wanted to find out what was going to happen.
I haven’t read any of her other work, but after reading this I’m eagerly awaiting the next instalment in the The Kingdoms of Evernow series and I fully intend to go back and read her Soulweaver Series as well. It’s not hard to pin down why this connected with me where plenty of other fantasy stories didn’t. I think it’s because it’s so full realised as a story, it’s and it’s not a composite or any imitation of any of the classics.
Something else that really gripped me, was that as a writer myself I greatly value the power of words, and the villain of this piece uses the spoken word for his own means, he takes control and usurps the freedom of the whispers. It’s truly unique and riveting in terms of plot, which I have to say Heidi handles expertly, so that the story flows from point A to point B in a timely, well paced fashion. Something else I liked is that the romance felt organic to the situation and the story, it didn’t feel tacked on or unreasonable given the circumstances and especially given the things that the main character goes through it makes total sense that they’d look for and find someone to share the burden and to share their heart. In fact it speaks a lot of the main character that despite what they’ve been through they can still open up the heart.
That’s all I want to say about The Whispers of Evernow right now, other than that if you want a well written story, of friendship, love, evil and hope then this book is the one for you. I’ll give it a 4/5 and if you want to get a copy for yourself then you can head on over to Amazon. Also this book is the first in a series and you can check out the rest by clicking here, here, here and here.
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