Dark Citadel

Darik is a young slave boy who happens to find himself in with a pair of spies while the city is attacked by the dark wizard.  Out west lies an army of wizards, griffin riders and a band of knights all of whom the companions work to encourage to come to aid of the falling city.  They need their help in order to defeat the dark wizard.  The dark wizard is not only interested in the city, he has his sights set on the beautiful queen, Kallia.  She struggles to keep her distance from the wizards embrace.

This was one of those books that came in my email as a daily free book, and it seemed interesting enough, and I did enjoy it, but it wasn't as satisfying as some of the other novels I have read in this genre.  Although any young adult, young reader would find the story engaging and interesting.  There are references to a past history that readers don't get an insight to, so there is a feeling of missing out on something important to the story. 

One thing that made it difficult to read and makes me lean on the fence about reading the next book in the series is that each chapter jumps time periods as well as perspectives.  While some readers may be able to follow the jumping around like that, other readers will find it difficult and be completely turned off by it. Most of the characters are develop except for the antagonist.  We know nothing about this dark wizard other than the fact that he wants to take over the world.  How can readers begin to hate a character they know nothing about?  There almost seems to be too much happening within the story and details that some of the character development suffers for it.  I hope this changes in the other books in the series.

With any genre there are books that excel and some books that seem to fall short, for me this was one of those books that fell short.  Not to say that it wasn't a good book to read which it was.  It just felt like it was trying to be more than it should be at this point.  Being the first novel, it felt like too much was pushed into the story to make room for what's to happen in the next novels at the expense of some background and character development.  As a rating...I give this a 2.5 out of 5 and as I stated before, I am not sure if I will read the other books in the series.