Thank you to Digital Reads Blog Tours for inviting me on this tour!

Synopsis

When a beautiful sorceress-queen, Selina, spurns Setanor, a powerful, jealous northern warlock, an invasion of Western Arcacia begins. To save her newborn triplets from death, they are cast down a magical river to the New World, a place called, ‘London, England.’

Thirteen years later in a cold, Victorian London attic… The future of Sophie, an impoverished orphan looks bleak but everything changes, to her astonishment after a young witch arrives through her bedroom window with an incredible message and a warning. So begins her life in a beautiful, enchanted ancient world…

How do Sophie and her four friends summon the tremendous courage to rescue her long lost family while restoring Arcacia from dark, ruling forces? Mystical beasts, sceptres, powerful witches and daemon-trolls are just some of their challenges. Meanwhile, the dreaded terrifying warlock, Setanor and his witch-consort Lilith have sent a secret enemy to plan their downfall…

My Thoughts

A cute story that is sort of a cross between Wizard of Oz/Narnia and Harry Potter. A girl from a poor situation summoned to the place she should be in another land to attend a school of different mythical folk and to find her mother.

The descriptions of Arcacia were lovely and really made me want to go to this vivid, different area,

“As they strolled along he pointed out the owl-like Chamerons; the chocolate cosmos flower; the rare insects, and the twittering snow-birds, high up in the pine-trees. Sophie was incredulous. The sights of this land were extraordinary. “Wow, I thought the cosmos flower went extinct a hundred years ago.” Like the sunbirds above, the rarest exotic flora thrived here along with orange ‘Parrots beak,’ flowers, flourishing on the forest’s mossy floor. What an incredible, enchanted world, Sophie mused. She absorbed the sights, full of awe. Giant butterflies and colourful parakeets flew beside them, unafraid. When Sophie breathed in she inhaled a delicious rush of sweet, vanilla fragrance that filled the air. Huge Sphinx moths fluttered between orchids that floated in the cypress trees. Sophie gazed up. By evening, above the magical forest, in the cosmos, the heavens appeared ablaze with myriads of stars against a galaxy with hues of midnight blues, deep indigo and crimson colours. So exquisite, it looked as if Van Gogh had scattered powders and metallic paints across the skies.”

There were a few issues with the writing style, in my opinion, with a lot of repetition in the prose

““One day I’ll hunt down that warlock, and I’ll burn that dreaded castle to the ground before his very eyes to make sure it never happens again.” Sophie shuddered, his words had moved her no end, and from his tone she knew he meant everything “Setanor,” Eddie murmured to himself, shaking his head. “That’s terrible. Seems, there’s no end to his callousness.”“If I ever find that murdering warlock I shall kill him.” The dragon re-iterated, his face turned grim.”

“She didn’t know where to look, but just then the frog slipped from of her fingers. It rocketed from desk to desk “Frog alert!” Olivia called out. The whole class watched in mild amusement as Olivia’s frog rocketed from desk to desk until, finally it dived straight down Rowen’s dress.”

Also, there was a disjointed kind of progression in the story. It didn’t flow organically, but instead was more like, “and then, this happened”, “and then, THIS happened.” it was a little like a child telling a story, as opposed to a story unfolding for the reader.

I also just couldn’t seem to follow the anklet. Her falcon, Ghost, brought it to her, wrestled it away from a bat and I thought she got it… And then he was somehow brining it to her again, and then taking it away again. It was all a little confusing.

It’s a little strange that she gets to this far off land and, when there she’s told “Your mother is missing, probably kidnapped, but no matter, we’re sending you to school and you’re starting tomorrow!”, and instead of being upset about it, Sophie is just worried about going to school, and nervous about knowing no one. They really downplay how emotional it would be to go somewhere to see your mother after all of these years, only to be told that she’s missing.

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Arcacia is Best Served with a Warlock Cocktail

Ingredients

• 1 ¹⁄₂ ounces brandy
  • ³⁄₄ ounce Strega
  • ¹⁄₂ ounce limoncello
  • ¹⁄₂ ounce freshly squeezed orange juice
  • 1 dash peychaud’s bitters

Directions

1. Fill a cocktail shaker half-full of ice.
2. Add the liqueurs, orange juice and bitters.
3. Shake well and strain into a glass.
4. CHEERS!!