#TheWriteReads #UltimateBlogTour Review: Knightmare Arcanist by Shami Stovall

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 4 out of 5.

An extremely well-written fantasy that kept my interested the entire time.

Thank you so much to The Write Reads and Shami Stovalll for allowing me to be part of this experience and also providing me with a complimentary digital copy and blog tour media kit!

About the Author

Shami Stovall is a multi-award-winning author of fantasy and science fiction, with several best-selling novels under her belt. Before that, she taught history and criminal law at the college level, and loved every second. When she’s not reading fascinating articles and books about ancient China or the Byzantine Empire, Stovall can be found playing way too many video games, especially RPGs and tactics simulators.

If you want to contact her, you can do so at the following locations:

• Website: https://sastovallauthor.com/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/GameOverStation/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SAStovall/
• Email: s.adelle.s@gmail.com

Review

Book CWs

For a list of warnings (and tropes) for this book, check out its page on BookTriggerWarnings.com.

Premise

Magic. Sailing. A murderer among heroes.

Gravedigger Volke Savan wants nothing more than to be like his hero, the legendary magical swashbuckler, Gregory Ruma. First he needs to become an arcanist, someone capable of wielding magic, which requires bonding with a mythical creature. And he’ll take anything—a pegasus, a griffin, a ravenous hydra—maybe even a leviathan, like Ruma.

So when Volke stumbles across a knightmare, a creature made of shadow and terror, he has no reservations. But the knightmare knows a terrible secret: Ruma is a murderer out to spread corrupted magic throughout their island nation. He’s already killed a population of phoenixes and he intends to kill even more.

In order to protect his home, his adopted sister, and the girl he admires from afar, Volke will need to confront his hero, the Master Arcanist Gregory Ruma.

A fast-paced fantasy with magical creatures for those who enjoy the Furies of Calderon (Codex Alera series) by Jim Butcher, Unsouled (Cradle Series) by Will Wight, and Percy Jackson and the Olympians by Rick Riordan.

Review (No Spoilers)

This is going to be a hard review for me to write because I liked this book a lot and writing reviews for books that I enjoyed is usually harder than writing reviews about books I didn’t enjoy.

It’s not often that I’m able to say confidently that I like a book only 20% in but that is exactly what happened with Knightmare Arcanist. I honestly would have read this book in one sitting if I weren’t so bad about getting distracted by social media (oops!). The writing is phenomenal and I really enjoyed all of the characters. Literally all of them–good and bad.

I know my readers are probably sick of me mentioning that I don’t normally read fantasy (because a lot of my blog tours are for fantasy novels for some reason) but this was one of those fantasy books that I read that made me feel like I’ve really been missing out by not reading more. To me, a well written fantasy novel is one that can whisk me away from real life and keep my attention with complex characters, solid plot structure, and atmospheric details/writing. This book did all of those things.

The only thing that I didn’t like was that I wanted it to be longer. For the amount of build up that there was to prepare us for a final battle, I thought book wrapped up a bit too quickly. I would have liked to see more confrontations and battle scenes than what was featured.

That being said, I am extremely happy that this is the first book in a series because I can’t wait to see what adventures these characters will take me on! I can already feel the character growth coming on and I am excited!

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