Title: The Namarielle
(Chronicles Of Lashai #1)
Author: Julien Jamar
Genre: YA, Fantasy
First published: January 19th 2018
Publisher: BooksGoSocial
Finished reading: May 23rd 2018
Pages: 349
“There is power in love that cannot be attained any other way.”
*** A copy of this book was kindly provided to me by Netgalley and BooksGoSocial in exchange for an honest review. Thank you! ***
I admit I kind of requesting this first book of a YA fantasy series on a whim after falling in love with the cover. There is just something about The Namarielle that instantly made me want to read it, and it turns out that my coverlove instinct was solid. Because there is no doubt I very much enjoyed this story! I’ve become a bit wary of YA fantasy series due to the amount of romance and repetitive plots, but I was pleasantly surprised by The Namarielle. The writing is engaging and made it really easy to emerge yourself into this new fantasy world. I enjoyed the worldbuilding and the promise of an interesting past, complicated and dangerous present and the promise of a better future. Would I have liked to see the worldbuilding even more detailed? Maybe. But I’m guessing that we will see even more of Lashai in the sequel. The characters are interesting, although a bit cliche with Cassai with her mysterious past and Elian with his secrets. The connection between them is a nice touch, although a bit cheesy as well… And some of the reactions and actions of the main characters could get annoying. I did like the inclusion of different fantasy characters like werewolves and fae. They add a little extra to the plot and I’m hoping to see more of at least the fae in the sequel. I did have some problems with the frequent POV switches though, because that made it a lot more difficult to connect to the different characters. But in general this was a highly entertaining and enjoyable first book of what looks to be a promising series.
Cassai grew up on a small farm hidden away from the rest of the world… Until one day she is no longer safe there. It looks like the people closest to her have been hiding things from Cassai, secrets that will change her life forever… If she can make it out alive. Because Lashai isn’t as it used to be under the Namarielle, and not following every order is very dangerous indeed. Especially with a history like she has, even if Cassai can’t really remember who she really is…
The Namarielle is a very entertaining and interesting first book of a new YA fantasy series. I really liked the worldbuilding and potential of Lashai, although I would have liked to learn even more about the world… But I’m hoping the sequel will give us more details. The characters are interesting enough, even though there are quite a few cliches, and I liked the special connection of Cassai. The constant POV switches did make it harder to connect to the main characters though. But all in all it was still a solid read.
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Wonderful review Yvo ❤ It sounds like this is one worth seeing through to the sequel.
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That’s right! I’m definitely going to look out for the sequel.
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This is a wonderful cover indeed and I am so glad the book hit the spot for you, too! 🙂 It certainly sounds interesting! 🙂
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I tend to avoid YA fantasy since they all seem to sound the same after a while, but this one definitely hit the spot. 🙂
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Yes, I was thinking that YA fantasy isn’t normally the genre you’d go for so I was intrigued to read your review 🙂
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I used to read a lot more of it (I actually have a bunch of them on my all time favorite list), but I guess somehow they all started to sound the same to me? Reading less of them has helped though (especially since I was able to add Strange The Dreamer to my very short list of 5 star reads this year recently). 🙂
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Oh, defo.. stepping away from a genre for a while help with the samey-same! I have yet to read Strange the Dreamer… have read quite the conflicting feedback from this but the bookgloggers I generally trust, seem to have loved it! 🙂
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I guess Strange The Dreamer can go both ways depending on how you react to the writing style and characters. The pace can be a bit slow, but I found the writing so beautiful that it didn’t really bother me. (Plus the main character is one of my new all time favorites.)
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