Although this is the fifth book in this ever growing fantasy series, this is where the story truly begins.

In this book we follow the journey of a young woman, Myranda, as she gets all mixed up in the game between The Chosen and the D'Karon: and it's quite a journey.

It's also a bit of an info dump, in that this is where we learn, through Myranda's journey, how magic works in this world.   But it's not a tedious info dump, the info is blended seamlessly into the story and everything just flows along at a really good pace and you never get any down time.

And we also end up back at Entwell during this story and discover what became of our sweet little fairy Ayna, and also get to know a few more of the characters there: which is always good.   There's even a cute little baby dragon, and we all like dragons, especially cute little baby ones.   Joseph always throws a cute little beasty thing into his stories and they do make for a lot of fun.

Final thoughts... This is my second reading of 'The Book of Deacon Anthology' and it's actually better than i remember it.   It really is one of the best fantasy series out there IMHO.   If you like fantasy, or are fantasy curious, then this series is a great one to read. ( )

this story was a good start to a series. It was a little slow at times. And Miranda is pretty clueless. I pretty much love Deacon also Lane.
I look forward to the next in the series. ( )

This was the first I'd heard of, or read anything written by Joseph Lallo, and I wasn't disappointed at all. I don't like adding spoilers to reviews so I'm not going to here.

The main character was very well written with depth and some very real traits, that allowed the reader to empathize with them in certain circumstances. That doesn't mean there are not those times when you just want to shake them silly, because there are, and to me that added to the book. The main characters concerns about what is taking place in her world, are very real concerns that could be placed into todays world in which we live.

Will I read the follow on novels from this? Absolutely, I would also highly recommend it to anyone that likes this genre. ( )

This book had good and bad points.

The good:
I liked the beginning story and the lore of the world. Her coming upon the sword was interesting. Liked most everything after she meets Myn and before she gets to the village. I even liked the wise old wizard. I also thought Myranda was a good character at first...until she gets to the village. I loved Deacon.

The bad:
Before she meets Myn was kind of boring and weird:
-The storyline of Trigorah and all those involved in that whole deal...there was no point to this in this book. If it is revealed in later books, cool, but I really don't care enough to find out anymore about it.
-Finding out Leo was basically a fox slash man; it made my insides feel weird because I wasn't sure if there was going to be furry sex and I wasn't okay with that.

-Didn't like that Myranda was good at everything pretty much the first time she tried things.
-Too long. Too much sleeping and eating. Made me sleepy and hungry.

I put way more bad things...oops. I thought this was enjoyable enough to like it with 3 stars, but I don't think I'll be continuing the rest of the series, and I'm not sure I'd recommend this to some people...however I enjoyed it just enough. Deacon and Myn saved it even when I felt I was slogging through pages.

I may try the next book after a bit. I was reading this while sick with the flu and that may have put a negative outlook on the book as a whole. So keep that in mind. ( )

This was the first I'd heard of, or read anything written by Joseph Lallo, and I wasn't disappointed at all. I don't like adding spoilers to reviews so I'm not going to here.

The main character was very well written with depth and some very real traits, that allowed the reader to empathize with them in certain circumstances. That doesn't mean there are not those times when you just want to shake them silly, because there are, and to me that added to the book. The main characters concerns about what is taking place in her world, are very real concerns that could be placed into todays world in which we live.

Will I read the follow on novels from this? Absolutely, I would also highly recommend it to anyone that likes this genre. ( )