Rating: 
Summary: Poor characters
Review: As soon as I saw that Ms. Furey had written another book, I bought it. I didn't read the back, I just bought it. I have been avidly awaiting any new books written by the author of the Aurian Saga. This book was everything that I hoped it would be. The characters are extremely realistic, the plot is excellent and you get drawn into the story on the first page. I can see in my mind the plights of these people and how the author is drawing them all together in what will be a magnificant climax in a future novel. My ONLY complaint is that Ms. Furey is known for writting multiple novels to finish one story and I hate to wait. I give this novel 4 stars because I'm bitter about having to wait another year or so before I can read the sequal. Oh well, anticipation makes the story twice as good.
Rating: 
Summary: Absolutely Wonderful!
Review: As soon as I saw that Ms. Furey had written another book, I bought it. I didn't read the back, I just bought it. I have been avidly awaiting any new books written by the author of the Aurian Saga. This book was everything that I hoped it would be. The characters are extremely realistic, the plot is excellent and you get drawn into the story on the first page. I can see in my mind the plights of these people and how the author is drawing them all together in what will be a magnificant climax in a future novel. My ONLY complaint is that Ms. Furey is known for writting multiple novels to finish one story and I hate to wait. I give this novel 4 stars because I'm bitter about having to wait another year or so before I can read the sequal. Oh well, anticipation makes the story twice as good.
Rating:
Summary: Shows promise!
Review: I've gotta say, as a series starter, this first book shows alot of promise, particularly by way of plot twists and character development. Although I found some of the characters shallow- with the exception of Toulac - there is room to build them up, particularly in relation to Valdan and Elion, and Blade. In the beginning there seemed to be alot of fast-paced meandering, but it levels out and concludes nicely towards the end with Zavahl's rescue. One thing I liked about this book is the way Furey artfully weaves the stray ends together to intertwine all the seperate characters into the plot. The part about Blade's romance especially threw me off. It's only the first book of the series, and after finishing it, I find myself eager to read the sequel... I only pray Furey doesn't let me down!Something I noticed with "The Heart of Myrial" was the similarities that linked this series with the Artefacts of Power, Furey's previous series. Blade's (the misunderstood bad guy) mysterious parentage to Veldan, is similar to Anvar and his relationship with the Archmage Miathan. The lifemate/soulmate as a means of marriage is present. Scall and Anvar are also similar in the way that they both begin as runts. By the set out of the Myrial map, it looks that the characters are in for lot of back-and-forth travelling, likewise in "Artefacts". The crusty-old-warrior- stereotype is present in Toulac as it was in Forral, etc etc. I could name a few more, but there's too much to write. Furey writes with great style, and her attempt at mixing an ambigious (as yet) Ancient technology with fantasy looks to be a risk. Only time can tell if she'll pull it off!
Rating: 
Summary: Can you possibly ask for anything better?
Review: Of all the D and D books I've read, I've never taken a liking to anything really. No books were able to capture my attention, but oh dear lordy, Maggie Furey had me at hello. LoL, for real though, this book is a definite must for hard core Dungeon and dragon's type people, or those that just want something fantastical.
Rating:
Summary: Furey Strikes Again!
Review: The Heart of Myrial is fairly well-written, with interesting characters and an intriguing plot. At the beginning, the tie-in between most of the characters seemed nonexistant, and I was concerned about the pacing of the action. However, the characters come together--in sometimes unexpected ways--and the action picks up well. Furey's descriptions are beautiful and (mostly) not overdone, not getting in the way of the action, while still making a nice impression. It helps that the descriptions are often colored by a character's thoughts, instead of just having bland narrative. The characters vary in temperment, intelligence, and species. Many of them develop in interesting ways, and even characters that I initially disliked usually turned out to have likable aspects. This actually annoyed me slightly, because it's hard to change your opinion of a character from 'bad guy' to 'kind of an okay person' or from 'good guy' to 'despisable bad guy.' Still, it's true to life in that first impressions aren't always perfectly accurate. I very much enjoyed reading this book & highly recommend it, especially to fans of Furey's previous books. I recommend reading at least the first page before buying it if you haven't read Furey before, for her style doesn't suit everyone. Still, it rates among the best books I have read, and I'm eager to read the sequels. This was a great book.
Rating:
Summary: A tragic dissapointment
Review: The plot and basic storyline of this book is intiguing. Maggie Furey creates a magical world filled with mythical beasts with a surprising twist. Each species is divided by a magical curtain that protects both the weaker species from the more aggressive ones and the different environments that each species needs to survive in seperate. I will stop here to avoid spoiling the story, because if I hate one thing about book synopsis or movie previews is that they give away the whole story before I even get a chance to read or watch them.
However, the reason why I give this book two stars is because the writing style kills any enjoyment that can be obtained by reading this book. I find it surprising that such a terrible writer can be published. I mainly blame the editor that could have done a better job at cleaning up the run-on sentences and overuse of discriptives.
Rating:
Summary: A tragic dissapointment
Review: The plot and basic storyline of this book is intiguing. Maggie Furey creates a magical world filled with mythical beasts with a surprising twist. Each species is divided by a magical curtain that protects both the weaker species from the more aggressive ones and the different environments that each species needs to survive in seperate. I will stop here to avoid spoiling the story, because if I hate one thing about book synopsis or movie previews is that they give away the whole story before I even get a chance to read or watch them.
However, the reason why I give this book two stars is because the writing style kills any enjoyment that can be obtained by reading this book. I find it surprising that such a terrible writer can be published. I mainly blame the editor that could have done a better job at cleaning up the run-on sentences and overuse of discriptives.
Rating:
Summary: A good start to the Shadowleague series.
Review: This book draws upon a large cast of characters' view points to fill out its four hundred plus pages, making me wonder if some of them serve any greater purpose. But this is book one of three, so it remains to be seen. Even so, it builds very satisfactorily towards the next one, using Zavahl's escape from the sacrificial pyre as a closure. There was a bit of a black hole after the pacey Chapter One until Veldan and Kaz reappeared by Chapter Four. Whilst this left space to introduce the bulk of the other players it would have been more agreeable, for the sake of focus, to have brought them in and out briefly instead: after all, everything at that stage happens at much the same time. Nonetheless it all shoots along with good tie-ins between the characters, including details you think have been missed: Scall realising who Seriema's attacker is being a good example. I thought the prose style was better than most of the British fantasy stuff that I've read lately, though it is a little over extended in places, and a lot of the fancier words could have been replaced with plainer ones to better effect. (I'm not sure that 'misanthropic' with respect to the donkey's character was really the best choice.) Neither J.R. R. Tolkien, Fritz Leiber, or C.J. Cherryh, for example, resort to such. Anyway, I'm keen to find out how Shree escapes from Blade's trans-dimensional black bag, and so on.
Rating:
Summary: Solid Read... Well-tied together
Review: This book sat on my shelf for almost two years before I picked it up. Than I read it over the course of a single day and I was mighty pleased to discover it! The story is told from the perspectives of many of the characters, good and bad, and this is the greatest strength of the book. It was extremely interesting how nothing and nobody was pure good or pure evil, and how all their motives were well justified. Some people may not like that, but it's real, and I was impressed by how well Maggie Furey pulls it off. It's very interesting when you see how two essentially good people could hate each other and each believe the other was of poor character when the truth lay somewhere inbetween. Whilst the world did not grip me, it is quite unique and different to the fantasy norm and there does seem to be plenty of potential in it. However, it is the characters that pull the story along at a ever increasing rate, especially as all their lives are intertwined in so many clever and surprising ways. The ending is a cliffhanger that will leave you wanting more, and I highly recommend this. As an avid fantasy reader, it is better than a lot of the tripe associated with the genre. Also, it's not too predictable, as I have far too many different ideas as to how the trilogy could be wrapped up! (Beware, the story does start a little slowly...)
Rating:
Summary: ***!! ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC !!***
Review: This book was very, very cool! I have to say that the first few chaptors took me a few weeks to read, lol, cause they were slow, but all books do that to you until you really get to know and love the charectors. I have absolutely no idea when the nxt book is coming out, and to be honest, I'm getting impatient cause I want to find out what happens!! Well, I really honestly and truly reccomend this book, so read it if you have time!
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