As much as I enjoy standalone fantasy epics, a part of me feels Blood of the Four would have been better served had the authors not tried to cram everything in this ambitious endeavor into one single volume. I had very mixed feelings about this one, due in part to the wild swings between the highs and the lows. At times, the story would have me gripped in moments of frenzied action and intensity, while at others I would find myself almost lulled to sleep by some of the slower and more tedious sections. At the heart of this novel is a kingdom torn apart by power struggles and slavery. Once peaceful and prosperous, Quandis has become a nation divided, ruled by a queen whose drug addiction has left her mind addled and unable to control the dangerous magic she dabbles in. One night, while in a state of drug-induced stupor, she accidentally lets it slip to her paramour that she has been attempting to seize the magical power of the Four for herself, drawing upon the forces said to belong to the four ancient sorcerers who founded the kingdom. The queen’s lover, however, was not the only one to…

Adam and Meryam are a newly engaged couple from very different backgrounds, but they have always bonded over their love of adventure. In recent years, they have even achieved moderate fame for their series of videos taken from their travels around the world. Now they are eyeing their next great challenge, an expedition to climb Turkey’s Mount Ararat after an avalanche has reportedly revealed a massive cave up high in the side of the mountain. Wasting no time, Adam and Meryam call upon an old friend to be their mountaineering guide, and together they begin a harrowing race up Ararat in order to be the first ones to discover its secrets. However, what they end up finding in the cavern goes even beyond their wildest dreams. Within its depths, the couple discover the remains of a large ancient ship, which immediately raises the question: could this be Noah’s Ark, the great vessel that weathered the Biblical flood in the Book of Genesis? To answer this question, a full team is quickly assembled to excavate and study the find, with Meryam at its head as project manager. Included among the scientists and other experts is also a documentary crew, which is…

The concept behind Dead Ringers is definitely a bit creepy and as you get further into the book, there are some seriously haunting scenes. The thought of suddenly coming across another person that is so identical to yourself, to the point that even close family can not tell the difference is strange. I will admit at times something about this tested my willing suspension of disbelief, I think because it happened to a number of characters. But really I think the reason I was not as easily swayed had more to do with the number of central characters. Horror books really rely on the readers emotions for them to be fully effective. The best way to get a very emotional reaction from the reader is to get them to really, really care about the characters. There were more perspectives in this than there tend to be with horror (pretty sure there were 4), and while I understand the need, I do feel like it put a little bit of a barrier for the reader to really get attached to any of them just because the pages were split amongst several people which gives the author less time to form that…