A Forest Of Vanity And Valour (The Levanthria Series)

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While I enjoyed Vireo's chapters, I despised Jareb's. There was no variation in voice despite them being on opposing sides. He was just so flat! Initially, I didn't mind him because he seemed to be doing his best with what he had. I was intrigued by an antagonist who put his people first, but his 180 turn into a tyrant was jarring. Even if we blame it on Morgana's influence, it should have taken him longer to forget his morals. The use of the first person present is done so horribly that I actively cringed at least once every chapter. It reads like an online role play, providing the reader with second-hand embarrassment. Example from the first paragraph of chapter 9: What's the story about: A Forest of Vanity and Valour is a fairytale retelling of Robin Hood mixed with some aspects of another English folklorian figure. The main characters are two men trying to make the best of their bad situations: a kingdom at war and a love triangle that divides them. While it may seem straightforward in that one is the good guy, one is bad, there is more gray to it.

Authors, if you are a member of the Goodreads Author Program, you can edit information about your own books. Find out how in this guide.We as the readers follow two narratives Vireo (our Robin Hood) and Jareb (the Sheriff?) that switch between chapters for the most part so we can see what is happening from both sides, which when there are not a lot of switching I tend to enjoy and I for the most part did in this book as well. An aggressive debt collector banished from the kingdom. Now his life depends on his ability to help the less fortunate… That said I was a fool. The story is absolutely captivating and each moment that passed I wanted to know more. The over all change in the main character was beautiful and compelling to see. Watching the antagonist fall deeper and deeper into madness was like watching a well preformed play. Vireo was a well-written character. He was selfish and greedy and, by all means, an unlikeable tax collector. His reasoning for his actions made sense (unlike other characters) and his evolution from a selfish man to a budding hero felt natural. Most importantly, his grief was palpable. I really felt for him when he was forced to kill the love of his life. Having him wear her green hood was a nice touch.

The dialogue was decent. Unlike the writing style, it flowed well even though it was nothing special. Now, as a fan of myths, legends and lore, I adored the concept of these books, which was the second reason I rushed to buy them. Unfortunately that's where the positives end. The writing isn't great. I don't consider myself a book snob and I understand that self-published indie books come with quirks and occasional mistakes, but I believe writing takes skill and ALL writing benefits from a few goes around with an editor and even ARC readers to really bring out the best in a story. While this started out as one, it ended up being a very loose retelling and very little shooting of arrows after a specific incident. (sad face) I had been following this author for a while and had not really had the courage to read the book due to the high expectation I had conjured in my mind.The characters themselves miss depth and would be better suited in a game of Dungeons and Dragons. In fact, the whole book feels like it could have been a transcript of a D&D campaign. The book had a few typos where the good mage and the villain’s names are swapped - so the book could just use another run through.

Admission of guilt: Bought Forest of Vanity and the following three books mostly based on the covers and the fun Tiktoks from the author. It's some wonderful imagery and AP is a fun person to watch. By publishing your document, the content will be optimally indexed by Google via AI and sorted into the right category for over 500 million ePaper readers on YUMPU.His history with Lek and Gillan could have been fleshed out more, but I still got a good sense of their characters. Jordell was also an interesting character and, to be frank, the only one with his head screwed on right. The quotes at the start of every chapter. In a positive sense give it a Skyrim or total war feel. However sometimes they feel redundant if they sarcastically applied or foreshadowed things in the book then it would have been more enjoyable to read them as they were from random characters who we weren’t introduced to. There were some loose ends that I felt could have been wrapped up nicely if an epilogue was given and I definitely would have enjoyed a bit of a longer book to be honest as I felt that there is so much more that could have gone in to make the book more fleshed out. Again, I really wanted to like this book. I am a big fan of fantasy, legends and even Robin Hood in general. While I do not wish to discourage the writer, as this seems to be his first book, it is a good example of self-publishing gone wrong.