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Spark Legends of the Shifters Book 1 edition by JB North Children eBooks

Download As PDF : Spark Legends of the Shifters Book 1 edition by JB North Children eBooks

Spark Legends of the Shifters Book 1 edition by JB North Children eBooks

What a delightful premiere by such a young author! The fantasy world created by Ms North is consistent throughout. The typographical errors are minimal. The writing kept my interest to the end. “Spark” and “Icebound” both end with cliffhangers, but the books are long enough to justify the price tag.

Those who claim that the cover picture has nothing to do with the book must not have actually read the book! “How do I change into half-form?” ...I felt my skin starting to change, and the bright light was coming into view. ... My changing felt different this time, my skin shifting in ways it hadn’t before, a burning feeling coiling around my entire body. ... Swirls of light veined my skin, glowing in the darkness. ... My clothes had changed also. When I changed back from full second form, I had on an inconvenient dress. But now that I was in half-form, the dress had been made for battle. It was shorter in the front with a long train of feathers ... Tall boots stretched up to mid-thigh, but oddly, it wasn’t uncomfortable. They fit me perfectly. A sword was strapped to my waist, and leather gauntlets warmed my fingers. I drew the sword. It rang as it cut through the air. ... Feathers were entwined with my normal red curls.”

In a novel written by a practicing Christian, lack of 4 letter words, vivid sex scenes, and dark thoughts is not evidence of “shallow and undeveloped” characters. Although Christians experience times of temptation, doubt, anger, and failure to live up to self-established codes of conduct, most of us are trying to be consistent to our values. A good deal of the “character development’ craved by some readers and critics are considered flaws by many Christian readers.


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Spark Legends of the Shifters Book 1 edition by JB North Children eBooks Reviews

Legends of the Shifters by J.B. North Series Review

 Instead of reviewing the individual books, I’m going to write this review in regard to the entire series. There are four books in the Legends of the Shifters series Spark, Icebound, Sandstorm, and Daybreak.

 Overall, I’d give the entire series a rating of 3.5/5 stars. Individually, I’d rate each book as follows
o Spark 2.5/5
o Icebound 3/5
o Sandstorm 3.5/5
o Daybreak 3/5

What I didn’t like (The list is quite long, but, I promise, I really did enjoy the series. I’m going into detail here to provide potential readers with an informed review and the author with useable feedback)
 The author was young when she started writing the first book, Spark, and it definitely shows. There were several moments in which the characters seemed extremely naïve, particularly the main character, Ivy. In the first book she was seventeen and, while she did grow up in an orphanage without much interaction to the outside world, one would expect her to be a little more mature.
o A sub-point to the naivety problem is that everything (and I mean everything) made the main character want to vomit. Someone was injured? She felt like throwing up. The mere thought of a dead body (even if there wasn’t one)? She had to hold back the urge to barf. This was quite an annoying and common occurrence throughout the entire series, but it definitely showed up much less often in the later books. Now, I can assume that the constant urge to vomit was the author’s way of simply saying that Ivy was nervous or just generally uncomfortable with a situation or thought, but there are better ways to show that. Even if she left the vomiting urges in the book, she should’ve changed some of those out with a different description to keep it from getting repetitive.

 There were quite a few things that were gone over with broad strokes, particularly the fighting scenes, the weapons, and the armor.
o I personally have a love for medieval armor and weaponry, so I really like lots of description of those things, but I realize that not everyone shares that interest. Still, some description was needed. Swords were simply described as swords, knives as knives, and bows as bows. We weren’t even told if the bow was a traditional bow or a crossbow (to be fair, it was clearly a traditional bow based on the description of use). Again, I didn’t expect to be told trivial details like if the blades had a convex or V-grind, but I expected to be told if they were curved or straight. At least tell me if it is a one-handed or two-handed sword.
o J.B. North activated another pet-peeve of mine when it came to armor. The problem was that there were only two situations in which she ever mentioned it. 1 The few times that she gave a brief description of the armor. 2 When someone was cutting through it. What’s the point of armor if Every. Single. Time. It gets hit, it just breaks? All right, I’m sorry. I’m done.

 There were also some logistical and consistency issues.
o The main character, Ivy, has the ability of fire. However, when the way the fire interacted with and effected the world and its people was constantly different from time to time without any explanation as to why, that’s a problem. At one point, when Ivy had an aura of fire around her, another character stuck their arm into the fire without injury, but then got extremely burnt when she forces his hand into the fire again later in that same scene. Other times people would suffer mere burns when they were hit with a blast of fire, but others were described as completely turning to ash.

 There were also some issues with the storytelling, itself.
o In the Legends of the Shifters universe there is a prophecy that involves our main character. Admittedly, I’m not a fan of prophecy and chosen one stories, but they can be entertaining. The problem with the prophecy in this story was that it meant nothing; it didn’t need to be there at all. The only actual roll that the prophecy played in the story was an occasional source of motivation for Ivy. At times, she would push through something saying, “I must go on because the prophecy says I have to.”
o There were also way too many coincidences for it to be believable. Fortunately, it seems that the author learned from her mistakes and this problem only existed in the first book. Without going back through the book and counting them, I’d say there were at least five story and character defining moments that happened entirely by luck or coincidence.
o Also, the story never really defines a “bad guy” until late in the series. Even when we are given a bad guy, we find that he isn’t the “real” bad guy behind it all. We are also told multiple times in the last book that the different kingdoms have seen this war with the “real” bad guy coming for decades and, thus, have prepared armies. So, if they have known about this bad guy for decades then why didn’t we, the readers, hear about this person until the end of the third book? The author tried really hard in the final book to make the reader feel the gravity of the situation (and, honestly, she did quite well given the fact that the problem was introduced so late into the series), but I feel like I would’ve been able feel for all the kingdoms and their occupants more if the war that was happening had been addressed earlier on and then had the tension built up throughout the entire series.
o Speaking of tension buildup, that brings me to my next point.
 Whenever something bad happened, I found it hard to care. And, no, it’s not because I didn’t feel for any of the characters (because I really did), it was simply because there wasn't enough buildup to the bad event. Whenever a bad thing happened, it just… happened. Don’t get me wrong, having something happen unexpectedly can be fun, but even that must be set up right. As a side note, the author did have one scene where something happened out of nowhere and I quite enjoyed it because it was portrayed very well (don’t worry, I won’t spoil it). Another reason I found it hard to care was because that bad thing almost always got resolved. We don’t see a bad thing with a permanent affect happen until the very end of the last book. Worse yet, not only is that bad thing always resolved, it’s usually resolved within two pages. So, I didn’t even have time to wonder how the characters might resolve the problem because… boom, problem resolved as soon as you turn the page.

 There were also some things I personally didn’t like with the physical side of the writing
o The author did a lot of “telling and not showing,” particularly when it came to facial expressions. I know that describing a face in enough detail to get the reader to understand what you’re trying to portray is difficult, but it has to be done. Showing the emotions helps the reader immerse themselves in the world and has a greater impact on the reader than simply saying things like, “he had a panicked look” or “he bellowed an enraged cry.”
o The author used quite a few phrases like, “he fell down, down, down” or “as we walked down the mountain we went around, and around, and around.”
o There were also some grammatical and spelling errors, albeit, very few that I noticed.
o Aside from the few spelling errors, there were a couple of times that she changed verb tenses.
o Also, there were a lot of fragmented, incomplete sentences. I get that authors can break certain rules of writing to get a particular sentence or scene to come across in a desired way, but many of the fragmented sentences would’ve read the same had they been combined with a comma.

What I did Like (This section is going to be much shorter because the review is already getting quite long and because the things I liked can be summed up pretty easily)

 The creativity and original ideas behind the Legends of the Shifters series made the whole story interesting and entertaining despite the above-mentioned issues.

 The characters were believable and interacted with each other in realistic and natural ways (although, a larger use of contractions in the dialogue would’ve made it sound less robotic).

 I could tell that the physical side of the world had been well thought out, with the consistent descriptions of the different kingdoms and where they were in relation to each other.

 It was neat to see a world in which everyone had a magical ability. Most stories with magic only give powers to a select few people, so I liked seeing that changed up. (I would’ve liked to see magic play a larger roll in the everyday person’s life, though)

 There are definitely some strong Christian themes in the book. I know some people like that and others don’t. Personally, I don’t care either way, as long as it’s incorporated well… and it was. (I think the author could’ve gone a step further with how the existence of magic interacted with the belief in God – since modern Christianity often condemns the idea of magic – but, as is, it never contradicted or took away from the story).

 All in all, I enjoyed reading the Legends of the Shifters series and I think J.B. North certainly has potential as a writer. She has a natural gift for creativity and, when it comes to writing, it’s easier to improve your writing style than it is to learn to be creative. If (hopefully “when”) J.B. North releases another book, I think I’ll be adding it to my library.
I was kinda worried this book would be another Red Queen and I'd end up not finishing it. I was so happy to be proven wrong! This book genuinely surprised me in good ways. The world was rather easy to get into and, while there is exposition, it's told from Ivy's perspective so we only know what she knows. This really helps the world building feel better paced. A lot of times a single line of dialogue would help explain a lot.

Ivy was easy to root for and not just because she's the main character. Going into the test she has no aspirations of greatness. She's not completely happy with the system, but she's smart enough to know when to keep her mouth shut.
"The poor can't help but hate the system, and if we tried anything, the noblemen would have us arrested and probably flogged within an inch of our lives."
She is strong and determined, if a bit naive at times. She is easily manipulated by others, but in her defense, she hasn't had a lot of experience with the world outside of her orphanage. She makes up for it by learning fast. Really fast.

This is a very interesting world with interesting characters. There is a lot of political drama brewing, but I'll have to read more about that in the second book of the series. If you enjoy fantasy YA with smart characters and plenty of action sequences, I do recommend this book. There is a lot of fighting but, thankfully, no love triangle, no single teenager leading a rebellion to take down the government, or anything like that. It's simply a story of a young, smart, strong girl being put into extraordinary circumstances, and trying to survive. Just with a lot of magic and fighting.
What a delightful premiere by such a young author! The fantasy world created by Ms North is consistent throughout. The typographical errors are minimal. The writing kept my interest to the end. “Spark” and “Icebound” both end with cliffhangers, but the books are long enough to justify the price tag.

Those who claim that the cover picture has nothing to do with the book must not have actually read the book! “How do I change into half-form?” ...I felt my skin starting to change, and the bright light was coming into view. ... My changing felt different this time, my skin shifting in ways it hadn’t before, a burning feeling coiling around my entire body. ... Swirls of light veined my skin, glowing in the darkness. ... My clothes had changed also. When I changed back from full second form, I had on an inconvenient dress. But now that I was in half-form, the dress had been made for battle. It was shorter in the front with a long train of feathers ... Tall boots stretched up to mid-thigh, but oddly, it wasn’t uncomfortable. They fit me perfectly. A sword was strapped to my waist, and leather gauntlets warmed my fingers. I drew the sword. It rang as it cut through the air. ... Feathers were entwined with my normal red curls.”

In a novel written by a practicing Christian, lack of 4 letter words, vivid sex scenes, and dark thoughts is not evidence of “shallow and undeveloped” characters. Although Christians experience times of temptation, doubt, anger, and failure to live up to self-established codes of conduct, most of us are trying to be consistent to our values. A good deal of the “character development’ craved by some readers and critics are considered flaws by many Christian readers.