Erich's Plea (The Witchcraft Wars) [Kindle Edition]

The first book in the Witchcraft Wars Trilogy, this is a fantastic fantasy novel that combines the mythology of different cultures (including Ancient Egypt, my favourite) with the fantasy world of the Kingdoms of Kaynos. This book follows the story of Slade, a young druid prisoner and prince of Vestland, as he escapes the infamous Zeaburg prison with the help of an unlikely band of allies, including a necromancer, a wizard and a half-ling. During this epic journey through the corridors and tunnels of the prison, the reader learns not only of Slade's past and his family but also of the rising shadow of war that is looming over the Kingdoms of Kaynos, as the Dark One gains power and control and amasses an army of outcasts and witches, setting the scene for the greatest bloodshed the Kingdoms have ever known.

Alley has created a world similar enough to our own for it to be believable and familiar while providing enough myth and magic to transport the reader to another world. The author's love of mythology comes through in the names and stories of the gods adding to the feel of the book and allowing the reader to be more familiar with the history of Kaynos. Alley portrays the world of Kaynos and its individual Kingdoms brilliantly, providing enough detail for the reader to picture the world easily without overburdening the story with too much detail and allowing the reader's imagination to take flight. The characters are believable with realistic and familiar fears, worries and beliefs that the reader can sympathise with.

This is book has set the scene for an epic fantasy trilogy and I can't wait to get my hands on the next one.

Storyline:

Erich's Plea is the first in a fantasy series that takes place in a whole new realm of Ms. Alley's imaginings with all manner of creatures and is the first (that I've read) that has a Minotaur as one of the main characters. I'm so excited by this character alone that I could sit and read the remaining books just based solely on this character's existence.

Ms. Alley introduces an interesting concept with a main element of her story being the differentiation between "magic" and "witchcraft". With the former a skill that is taught, trained and used with the blessing of a particular deity and the latter being something that is more innate and can work independently of the gods (be they "good" or bad" gods). I am definitely interested to see how these differences will be used in the future novels.

Grammar/Spelling:

I'm definitely a comma kind of gal and I might even go so far as to say that I LOVE commas. One thing that I noticed was a distinct shortage of commas throughout the story and this was somewhat distracting to me. At several points, I needed to read back over the sentence more than once to figure out what the character was actually saying.

Character Development:

Ms. Alley does a great job in developing the characters and showing the prejudices between those who practice magic and those who do not. I liked that this is not just a human trait, but that everyone and everything seemed to have this sort of distrust of one another. (Well, I don't like it when people don't trust one another because they're different, but I could relate to the distrust based on nothing more than fear of the unknown.)

Slade, the main character, is very believable as a former prince turned Druid. He has his doubts and his moments of weakness, but he is a strong leader and should prove to be a formidable foe to The Dark One and all who would wish to do his father's kingdom ill will.

Though, he is not the main character, the Minotaur named Tares, is the most intriguing. As I stated before, I have not read any other book, other than a certain story by a certain author who is the certainly one of the most well-known horror authors who lives in Maine and who shall remain nameless, that has ever featured a Minotaur. That alone is unique and wonderful. Tares is also a warrior priest, a healer and honorable even to the point of fault.

Writing Style:

The story itself is very easy to follow and read. I felt that there could be some more in-depth descriptions regarding the various areas of The Kingdoms, but I assume that with time, the rest of the series will give us more detail regarding those areas. Ms. Alley easily incorporates multiple pantheons of gods that the reader will have no trouble keeping straight.

Continuity:

The story seems to have conflicting timelines. The main group of characters' adventures and movements seem to encompass a single day; while a secondary set of characters' (seemingly) concurrent adventures occur over a much longer period of time. It doesn't muddle the story; but, rather, it's more like an odd quirk. But, given the quick pace of the main character's escape and exploits, the story definitely moved along rather quickly and the timeline differences are barely noticeable.

Overall Rating: 4

Overall, the story is wonderful and the reader can easily and quickly become quite involved with the characters. It is evident that Ms. Alley put a lot of thought into the story, the realm and the characters. One of the aspects I really liked the apparent ease of the story; it does have a strong plot line and many different characters, but I feel like this will be easy to follow through to the end of the series.

I would recommend Erich's Plea to anyone who enjoys fantasy, though if your preferences lie in the darker realms, this may not be the book for you. I'd also suggest this to anyone as a "beginner" fantasy novel as the different creatures are mainly ones that are commonly recognized from mythology.

Erich's Plea is book one of The Witchcraft Wars by Tracey Alley. This fantasy novel introduces us to Slade, who has given up his right as the prince of Vestland to become a Druid. After learning of Slade, we realize that he is in prison and endures hours of torture on a daily basis. With all hope of escaping quickly slipping from Slade's grasp, he is startled when he starts receiving a plea for help by his father, Erich. Knowing that he must somehow help his father, Slade finds himself blindly following strangers and not knowing who he can trust. In a few spots throughout the book, the details seemed to get a little thick at times which caused the pace of the story to slow down a bit. However, I really enjoyed how the characters were built and the overall storyline of this story makes for a good read. Each chapter opens up with a small picture and I found this to be wonderful. You get to see the faces of characters who are in the story and even though some looked differently then I imagined when they were described, it was nice to be able to put a face with a name. All in all this was a good read that went quickly and is suitable for most age groups. The main thing that I didn't really like in this story was the ending. I felt as though it was suddenly cut short and I think it would have been beneficial to have a big ending rather than be cut off before the main event. The story builds and leads the reader up to this big life changing ordeal...only that event does not occur in book one. However, I suppose that is a good selling point as I will be getting book two just so I can see what happens next with Slade and the other characters involved.