Dawn of Wonder (The Wakening Book 1)

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When a high-ranking officer gallops into the quiet Mistyvales, he brings a warning that shakes the countryfolk to their roots.

The atmosphere is supposed to be tense, and now I have images of cute animals scratching themselves. I want to just copy and paste the whole section because I really like how Renshaw describes Aedan’s feelings, but I won’t. Predictions: We will continue to not see any of the nuance I thought I saw in the first few chapters that had Clauman.Tyne chalks up Clauman’s violence to an overabundance of pride and says that pride is terrible, but wonders if there’s hope for him. Osric’s been mentioned a few times, but I wish we had seen more of him in the middle of the book – like, actually seen him. Most of the chapter is about Claman’s henchmen trying to rob Old Poor Couple of all the money they made that day, but Aedan and friends stop them. Aedan’s tries to be like, but how does that explain you never coming back home that time we moved to Castath and you were gone for days, but Clauman realizes that there are still people around, so he gets all hard again and leaves. Granted, I don’t see any people in front of me as I type away at this computer screen, but, even if I were seeing any of the people who read my blog, I don’t think I’d see any hands.

But he couldn’t, so instead he grabbed a plank from a broken crate and assaulted the nearest wall, feasting on images of gory revenge. She’s setting realistic goals for him and doing a lot to help him achieve those goals that will give him a comfortable – if not remarkable – life. a horse and rider hurtled around the bend, apparently unaware of the recent quieting of their surrounds. It sure can be interesting and add a layer of realism or an “oh, neat” moment, but does not have a huge impact on the quality of the writing (at least for me). I know that’s a lot to think about when you just want to get the story down, but it would be playing to Renshaw’s strengths, and it would be a good way to encapsulate the values his fantasy culture has.Predictions: I feel like Renshaw is going to try to redeem Clauman in a later book and this chapter was trying to set Clauman up as redeemable, but, I don’t think he completely succeeds.

Then the chapter has the long section about Torval, then Aedan survives by himself in the wilderness as part of his training. Since he’s already given us two letdowns, I can’t put it past him, but I’m guessing this is part of the main plot. Not that I can’t see how someone could potentially enjoy the school-related chapters, maybe, I guess, but… It’s a bit boring. They felt very much like Dungeons and Dragons characters in that they had these traits that sounded good on paper, but, he needed to play with them a bit more.Just the fact that so much time won’t be spent on Aedan just learning skills will make the next book much better than this one. And friends, even old friends, were never quite on the level of companions until they shared his adventures. Aedan gets horribly burned (especially on and right above his ear) while he and his mother are trying to escape. Many eyes watched from various points along the sheer banks but only one other person was on the bridge. I’m not saying there’s no books out there which are successful because they’re great books, I’m just saying it’s not necessary for a book to be good to be financially successful.