I love fantasy books, and I love adventure so, put those two genres together, and I get very excited! I was, therefore, delighted when I was offered the opportunity to review this book. The author sent me a copy in exchange for an honest review. The book can be purchased here. Summary Matthew is an average boy who doesn't realise his father is the Blademaster, a title given to one person capable of wielding the sword of the elements. This sword can metamorphosise, depending on what the Blademaster needs. The sword of wind can creating tornados, while the sword of water can manipulate (you guessed it!) water. When Matthew's father goes missing, and is presumed dead, Matthew is given a special book that can transport him to his father's native world. There, he finds out that he is the new Blademaster and begins a quest to seek out the evil Black Knights and hopes to find what happened to his father. Reviewing... The Plot I love stories about parallel worlds, and it's alw...
Thank you Judith Crow for writing this book review.
Mysteries and Misadventure - Tales from the Highlands by Aaron Mullins
I do like short stories. There’s just something about having the option to dive into a book for five minutes and emerge having completed an entire story.
Aaron Mullins' Mysteries and Misadventures is a collection of short stories which are inspired by the area we live in. It always helps when you can put yourself in the place where the stories are set but, never fear, Aaron has a genuine gift for descriptive writing which allows people from any place to put themselves in the settings he skilfully creates.
I regularly do the “first read” of the Crowvus Christmas Ghost Story competition, meaning that I can be reading over a hundred supernatural stories in a very short space of time. That makes me choosy and means I come at any such stories with a very critical eye. Mysteries and Misadventures does stand up well in this light. Again, that descriptive writing is what really brings the tales to life: so important in a short story.
I am slightly less convinced by his dialogue. I’m very pernickety when it comes to dialogue and Aaron does create things very well, there are just a few moments where the authenticity slips slightly, or the use of the Caithness dialect* doesn’t quite ring true.
The book begins with a well-written, gripping ghost story which is a Caithnessian take on the Vanishing Hitchhiker tale. One thing that gives Aaron Mullins a definite edge in his stories is that he is a psychologist by trade and his characters, even in the very short stories, have a depth that some authors fail to create in an entire novel. For the best example of this, read his third story in the book: Equal To and Greater Than. It should be compulsory reading for anyone working in a High School setting.
In Mysteries and Misadventures, Aaron's masterful use of descriptive writing brings each story to like, providing the opportunity to explore a collection of short stories from a part of the world where myth and magic are still very much alive. His expert grasp of human psychology makes it appear perfectly logical that the supernatural could easily collide with the modern-day.
* Caithness dialect is tricky – take that from an incomer! There are words that mean something slightly different from one end of the county to the other (ask anyone from Wick what a “scorrie” is and they’ll point you to a seagull; ask someone from another part of Caithness and they’ll tell you that a gull’s only a scorrie for as long as it’s got its juvenile feathers). The result of this is that there are tweaks I would have made as a “Weeker” that are probably fine for someone in Thurso.
Easily worth the 4 stars!
You can buy Mysteries and Misadventures here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mysteries-Misadventures-Highlands-Aaron-Mullins-ebook/dp/B087QVNGWY
and learn more about the author here: https://aaronmullins.com/
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Shameless plug for our Ghost Story Competition!
You have until the 30th September to send us your ghost story (up to 4000 words) to be in with a chance of winning! Check out the details on our website: www.crowvus.com
Stuck for inspiration? Have a look at our video for the 4th annual ghost story competition here:
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