ARC Review: Girl of Myth and Legend (The Chosen Saga #1) by Giselle Simlett

Published: December 29, 2015 by WWS Publishing, LTD
Genre: YA, Paranormal, Fantasy
Format: ebook
Source: Netgalley for honest review

Goodreads Summary

A girl with a past she tries to forget, and a future she can’t even imagine.

Leonie Woodville wants to live an unremarkable life. She wants routine, she wants repetition, she wants predictability. So when she explodes in a blaze of light one morning on the way to her college, it’s enough to put a real crimp in her day.

And things only get weirder…

Leonie learns from her father that she is last of the Pulsar, a phenomenally powerful member of a magical species called the Chosen. It will be her sole duty to protect the Imperium, a governing hierarchy, from all enemies, and to exceed the reputation of the Pulsar before her. So – no pressure there, then.

Leonie is swept away from her rigorous normality and taken to a world of magic. There, she is forced into a ceremony to join her soul to a guardian, Korren, who is both incredibly handsome and intensely troubled, a relationship for which ‘it’s complicated’ just really doesn’t cut it.

But Leonie is soon to learn that this ancient world is no paradise. With violent dissidents intent to overthrow the Imperium, and dark entities with their own agenda, she and Korren find themselves caught in a war where they will have to overcome their differences if they are to survive.

Dare to dream. Dare to hope. Dare to be a legend.

Book One in The Chosen Saga.

A land of impossibility, a land made of myth and magic.

The Good

The POV is alternating between our main character, Leonie who is a Chosen and her kytaen, Korren. Kytaens are basically the bodyguard for the Chosen and are considered as tools to use and are not regarded as friends or comrades in arms. The Chosen are broken down into groups based on who has the most magic. These two are very different from all others of their kinds. Leonie was raised in the human realm so she grew up with different beliefs than other Chosen in the story. Korren is a kytaen who is done with it all and ready to bring the Chosen down. He's a little bent on revenge. I enjoyed getting to know these characters and watch them change throughout the story. Their backgrounds and beliefs are very different and the POVs were well done in keeping those voices separate. Korren is the one that I'm most drawn to because his story as an immortal and all that he's gone through grasps me.

The world and setting in Girl of Myth and Legend is fantastically drawn out and unique. I love that they entered a portal and were taken to a different realm called Duwyn. With rebels attacking almost the second Leonie arrives, to the night becoming alive around her in the creepy, be-scared-of-the-dark way, this setting is one that I enjoyed. I am looking forward to exploring this world more in future books.

There is quite a lot going on throughout the pages. There are attacks after attacks, training for Leonie's powers, learning about this world, and it ends with another wild situation. There are deaths already in the first one which I enjoy seeing. It makes this despair real and the attacks mean more and it also means that Simlett isn't afraid to kill off characters. I'm very excited to see where this story goes in future books.

The Bad

If you are not a fan of cliches, you will immediately see the heroine that has the best power of everyone and just realizes that she has it. While this doesn't bother me in the least, those of you that get tired of seeing certain things in YA will be affected.

The dialogue was a little odd to me. It grows on you eventually, but my copy has all discussion in a single quotation instead of double quotation marks so it makes it more difficult to see when dialogue started. I did get used to it after a bit and wasn't a problem anymore.

The very beginning is harder to swallow than all the rest of the book. Leonie is a little hard to relate to when we first meet her and she is thrust immediately into a new world with new powers and finding out that her dad has lied to her all her life. It all happens in a very short amount of time and there is quite a bit of an info-dump with it. It all smooths out rather quickly however.

The Romance

There is no romance to discuss in this one. I enjoyed the friendship (if they would even admit to that) between Korren and Leonie. Korren has been raised around kytaens being treated rather poorly and having to do whatever the Chosen say. Leonie comes on to the scene not caring that she's supposed to treat him a certain way, she wants to be his friend and learn more about him. They make quite a pair and I was very glad to see that Leonie never succumbed to treating Korren badly.

Conclusion

This is a good one. The interaction between the characters is very amusing. I also like that they stand firm on their own moral beliefs instead of preconceived notions or the community's idea of right and wrong. The setting was imaginative and unique and I can see the potential this series has to go in the future. The pacing was very nice with a nice balance of action and dialogue. Recommended.

Excerpts

"Unless I missed something when I was learning about puberty, eyes bleeding or changing colour or whatever the hell is happening to them is not supposed to happen!"

Of course the Chosen wouldn't address us. To them, kytaen are just tools, objects, shields that protect them. We're not even worthy of the title slave.

She is a beautiful, almost angelic-like existence, though there is something stern about her, something bleak.