I chose to get the Mage's Tomb, by J.T. Brister, when it was offered as a free promotion on Amazon. I was drawn to it mostly because of the cover (which is no longer available). It looked very professional to me. Then I read the blurb and was definitely drawn in. Just as a precaution, I also glanced at the Look Inside sample. That really sealed the deal for me. I had to read it. Here are my honest thoughts on the book.
Things that I liked:
The writing was definitely very good...for most of the book anyway. What I find that I liked most about it was the witches. They were creepy, well thought out, evil and manipulative. They were definitely my favorite part of the book, hands down. The other thing that I liked was the magi. It was an interesting twist to the concept of magic using and I really liked the idea of using magic equals a price that has to be paid. The village of Chardwick was also well thought out and their way of life descriptive enough to suck me into the story. I loved their hatred for the magi and the fact that they deemed themselves protectors of a sort. The thing that I really thought the author excelled at was character development and dialogue. It all felt very real and natural, unlike some books I've read where they seemed fake or forced. There were other aspects to this book that I enjoyed, but those are the big ones.
Things that I didn't like:
One of the biggest things that I found I disliked was the author's tendency to skip out on a few details. For example, the MC gets on a boat by himself. Then, it jumps ahead to a different POV, the witches', and somehow they are on the boat with the MC. It took several more paragraphs for me to learn that they were invisible and the MC didn't know they were there. I found several instances of this throughout the book. Also, there were more than a few grammatical errors, typos, wrong words or even words that were missing that were supposed to be there. Overall, it was infrequent, but towards the end of the book, they started getting more common. Another thing that I wasn't overly fond of was the pace of the book. I felt that the beginning was excellent. Then it got slow. Then slower. Then it finally started picking up again. Then it was getting even better with lots of action. Then it started to die down again. Finally, at the end, the book's pace was more locked in and natural.
Stars: Four out of Five
Overall, I really wished I could give it a Four star rating, but there were issues I couldn't overlook. If I could, however, I would give it something like a 3.5 rating. I think the book is better than a three star (especially with some more editing), but for me it didn't quite reach four. I would like to read the next book in the series, however. The story is interesting and I'd like to see what comes next.
Unfortunately, the Mage's Tomb is no longer available for purchase.