In the dense Marduk jungle, an ancient artefact surfaces, igniting a global power struggle. Royal Marine Calris Telruson and aspiring mage Jasmine Fastra are thrust into the fray. Calris savors his adventurous life at sea, while Jasmine pursues her magical dreams. But as they collide with forces vying for the artefact, their worlds unravel. Amidst perilous foes, they must defend the artefact’s secrets with all they possess: fists, flames, and a touch of audacity. Yet, the artefact’s true purpose eludes them, as they navigate treacherous waters where survival hinges on unraveling its mysteries.

There are creatures, battling, sergeants, impulse, assassins, and more in this easy read. The book has a well-crafted story with a little clinical undertone, and the language is skilful. The plot makes sense. The backstories of the characters and their effects on them were also frequently and simply described. The fantasy adventure was entertaining, with combatants vying for dominion over the planet and magical objects used by sorcerers and troops.

All in all, I thought this fantasy book was clever, utterly humorous, and surprisingly enjoyable. The reader is kept on the edge of their seat the entire time, wondering what will happen next given the power of the artifact and the protagonists’ ability to persevere in the face of uncertainty. In addition to the fantastic banter and humour noted before, this novel features fantastic relationship dynamics and a ton of action. Overall, it was a simple read, and I’m interested to see how the protagonist and his group will carry on with their antics.

Adventure with magical artifacts, with many vying for power. Fun read, but I did not find it to be my cup of tea.

This was exactly the read I needed.
Fast-paced, easy to follow and an interesting story.

If you're looking for a book with lots of fighting, magic, monsters, magical artifacts, assassins and lots of banter you hit the jackpot.

Thanks to Netgalley for providing me with an ARC. My review is freely given and honest.

This is a smooth read full of beasts, fighting, sergeants, impulse, assassin’s and more. If you want a book full of action, a bit of magic and a lot of banter then this is the book for you! A Bastard’s Birthright is an adventure you don’t want to miss!

A taught thriller with lots of twists and turns that will keep audiences intrigued throughout the story. Lots of magic, intrigue, and action that held me enraptured until I finished the story.

I really enjoyed A Bastards Birthright. The characters were engaging and funny and very easy to picture. The story was well paced and easy to read. I honestly couldn’t put it down. A very good fantasy book.

When an artifact that could reshape existence comes into play, all parties want a piece of it. When gods, trolls, marines, mages, and assassins all join the fray, you know something epic is going to happen.

This book has everything you could ask for in a fantasy: magic, romance, evil villains, a key that could destroy the world, and witty banter to tie it all together. This read is 100% character driven. Calris, Ban, and Jasmine will have you laughing out loud with their on point digs at each other that only comes from true friendships.

This one was a 3 for me because there was nothing in the story line that truly grabs you. It's an interesting read and not one you skim over, but there was nothing there to sink your teeth into.

Thank you net galley for the Arc!

A Bastard’s Birthright is about an escort mission gone haywire.

The main characters and supporting characters were great- the back and forth between our main character, Calris, and his best mate, Ban, were a highlight for me, though at times a bit cringy (in a cute way!) The overall dialogue was fun and had a very D&D/Final Fantasy kind of vibe. The descriptions & characterizations were especially apt, and I enjoyed the general flow & pacing of the writing.

Unfortunately, there was a lot of ‘telling, and not showing’. I felt as though I was being spoon-fed the plot which shattered the immersion a few times. That affected the rating most for me, overall. There were also numerous well-worn fantasy tropes that could have used some tweaking.

I think this book has a lot of potential. There are great bones for a wonderful adventure story here, but to me, it fell a little flat, and I wanted more.

My sincerest thanks to NetGalley, BooksGoSocial and JE Payne for providing me with a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review. A Bastard’s Birthright will be published October 1, 2024.

Corporal Calris may have bit off a bit more than he could chew when on a mission to escort a magical artefact he asked the gods to provide a bit of entertainment. As he now finds himself and his best friend Ban to be wrapped up in something far larger than just an escort mission. With the fate of the world literally at stake Calris must escort one of the world's most powerful mages Ferez and his maddeningly adorable apprentice Jasmine across the world while being chased by assassins and fighting monsters from another world. All in a day's work for a marine though right?

The Bastard's Birthright was absolutely a very straight forward, very predictable fantasy adventure with a military twist and I loved every minute of it! Okay well not every minute of it, because while I totally get the author is in the military he may have taken is whole "I'm a badass marine" to an extreme only a marine is able to (a character actually says Huzzah! at one point I've never rolled my eyes harder in my life) but other than that it was amazing. And quite frankly since we've recently had the wife of U.S. Service Member write a book that pales in comparison to this I'm willing to forgive him.

This book is 100% character driven and honestly there's not one character in it I disliked. Even the bad guys. Actually probably especially the bad guys. The Guild Master and High Mage Politis are so freaking over the top in their whole "I'm going to rule the world" thing it's absolutely wonderful. Sometimes you just need a straight forward bad guy who has no other motivation than be an Evil Overlord to really make the good guys shine. And shine they do. Calris, Ban, and Jasmine have such a wonderfully normal friendship given the circumstances it was really a joy to read. Especially when the whole story really does revolve around first Ban and Calris but then the three of them being stronger together. And Jasmine is definitely my hero. I love that she is awkward around people and she has to learn that she's not the smartest guy in the room. It is absolutely realistic and was really wonderful to read. And the fact that Payne is bound and determined to make his marines intelligent (outside of wartime knowledge) I found to be a refreshing and much need piss off to the typical stereotypes that surround this branch of the military.

The action scenes in this were well done as well. I wouldn't say they are as good as say Dalglish's but pretty damn close. The monsters were unique and were described in perfect detail. Which I find to be important. Sure yes I've seen a troll before but not a troll in this world and certainly not whatever the hell the Guild Master ended up being, so I truly appreciated that attention to detail. And while the magic system wasn't really original I liked how it was adaptable. As Ferez and Jasmine are both fire mages the adaptability and individuality of their arts are easily seen here. Both of them have found styles that work for them even though they are using the same exact weapon.

And yes the romance side of this was absolutely adorable. Calris and Jasmine and too cute together and I probably would have been furious if Payne had ended the book without addressing this in a satisfactory manner.

Overall, I found this to be a witty, absolutely hilarious, and surprisingly fun fantasy novel and I highly recommend it for anyone who enjoys Dalglish, Johnston, heck I'd actually say Lackey to because the characters definitely have her brand of smart ass charm all over them. Genuinely, can't imagine this not being in my Top Ten for 2024.

As always thanks to BooksGoSocial and Netgalley for the eArc!

This book wasn’t bad by any means, I just don’t think it was for me personally. It was a fun fantasy adventure involving soldiers and sorcerers magical artifacts and different people competing for the chance to gain power and control the world. It’s definitely a good concept, it just didn’t feel like anything new. The story started slow, and the twists felt predictable.

The book read younger to me than I feel it was supposed to. Even with the (somewhat excessive) swearing and the concepts presented, this felt more like a story aimed towards a younger audience, not quite middle grade but maybe younger young adult, if that makes sense.

However, even with those criticisms I did enjoy the characters. The friendships and banter were well done. It also made me laugh out loud a couple of times which is rare. So, overall I’ll give it a 3/5 because it was good, just not as good as I was hoping it would be. Thank you Netgalley for the ARC!

An everything fantasy adventure

JE Payne's ABB has everything you want in a fantasy adventure: humble but badass buddy soldiers, sorcerers, pretty girls, badass girls, pretty badass girl sorcerers, elder gods, a little romance... (It also has, in its title, a word that is absolutely forbidden in an Amazon review, for which reason I abbreviate it ABB.)

It was not unentertaining, and I read with pleasure most of the time. However, I was glad to reach the end, and I was left with a feeling of disappointment that I have trouble explaining. After all, I am a Fantasy and Science Fiction fan, and we have here all the kind of stuff here that is found in other books I love.

And that, I think, is the problem. ABB never surprises. I don't mean that it's predictable. If I roll a die and get a six, that is not surprising, even though it was unpredictable.

It is not easy to surprise. To surprise, you have to create an expectation, then break it. And not with a random something else: ideally it should be a bigger and better or more evil or impressively weirder something. ABB has the stuff in it that a fantasy adventure should have. But I never found myself saying, "Whoa! I wasn't expecting that!"

I thank NetGalley and BooksGoSocial for an advance reader copy of ABB. This review expresses my honest opinion.

A high fantasy book about a soldier and a mage apprentice and the adventures they have to go through to fight evil.

It is pretty easy reading, with a semi-slow pace in the beginning that picked up towards the end.
I enjoyed the world building with lore, different cultures and different climates.
There is a magic system that was being touched upon without really going very deep - it mainly just follows usual tropes of different schools of magic and a magic ressource with the creative name "Talent".

What icked me the most was the descriptions of the characters and their personality traits and motivations. There was barely any ambiguity or nuance - the good people were good and the evil people were evil and you weten't in doubt who was what. Also, the characters' backstories and how they impacted the characters were pretty straightforward and mentioned often.
Dialogues seemed stiff and forced at times, again with very little left in-between the lines. They included some proverbs and references that were unexpected in a fantasy plot ("mea culpa", Oedipus complex, "Do you have time to discuss our lord and saviour"). Otherwise a lot of banter and an attempt at humour which only worked half of the time in my eyes, and sometimes was rather cringe and awkward.
The relationships among the characters were also a bit off putting. Military or educational ranks and hierarchy seemed completely irrelevant and were constantly challenged without consequences or just didn't exist.

The biggest confusion in terms of personality was absolutely Jasmine, who got a very specific description of her personality traits in the beginning and then basically did not follow up on it at all.
(Was it just me who noticed that all men have very fantasy-appropiate names and as good as all women have plain, modern day names like Jasmine and Elizabeth?)

Positively, there were multiple strong female characters, even though it had to be mentioned many times how sexy they were.

PS: Javelins? Really??

What I have just read was a cliched fantasy story that had glimmers of fun and exciting prospects; it was ultimately let down by bad prose and incredibly lazy trope placement.

The good:
- A likeable protagonist (Calris) and a set of supporting characters that bolster him.
- A fast-paced story that didn’t info dump.
- It was funny (more often than we usually get in fantasy stories) and I liked more dialogue than I didn’t.
- Magic has consequences and I liked some of the mage/power world-building that was shown.

The bad:
- I’ve read this story before…many times.
- Lots of parallels to our world but not for the right reasons.
- Inconsistency in personas. One character’s backdrop/attitude changed quickly.
- Swearing for no reason. I swear like a trooper but this took the p**s.
- Horrendously overused tropes like Calris calling the damsel in distress character ‘princess’ and being retorted back with ‘Ape’, or the stupid ‘we’ve found an artefact and it’s super powerful and opens portals but we also don’t know what it does lol’

There’s a pretty good story hiding in here somewhere but it needs editing, change and a little more originality.

I thank Net Galley and BookGoSocial for this ARC, in exchange for my honest review.

Hmmm
I am not really super sure what or how to even say what I feel.
The book was not directly bad, not at all in fact. It was just, chaos?
At times I was not really sure what I was even reading, in some ways this was and is a good thing. I needed to see and understand what was even happening.

In terms of writing there was not much complicated words, the sentence structure was overall simple and easy to understand. The balance between disribing and showing vs telling was great. I felt like the book floated along more than start and stop. Like some other books tends to be.

The caracthers were overall to my liking, I found them funny yet serious. They did not distrub the storyline and was really there to help. Sometimes books feel like the plot and the caracthers are two diffrent things, this did not feel like it.
It was truly one and the swme thing.

The idea of the story was to my liking, I am not sure I liked the way it was done too well so it does not get the top ratings for me.

I did enjoy this purely for the banter. Loved Cal and Ban the relationship they have, loved the sarge. I felt we didnt see enough of the relationship between the marines, would of liked to of seen their characters more. The plots for seeking the key were ok but a little middlegrade... It would of been an idea to have a glossary so you knew the kingdoms and the types of mages. I think if i was to read further from this author it would be purely the banter unless of course the plot become more enticing.

DNF at 47%. I just wasn't enjoying this book at all; I was having to talk myself into picking it back up every time I stopped reading. I'm giving it three stars, which on my rating scale means "fair".

First the positives:

*This story moves along at a rapid clip.
*Up to my stopping point I hadn't come across any huge info dumps
*Buddy relationship between two of the marines. That was a big positive.
*Interesting premise
*Some humor and occasional good dialogue
*Likeable protagonist

The negatives outweighed the positives for me. In no particular order:

*Inconsistency in setting. This is a medieval-ish created world, and yet the sergeant smoked cigarettes. They were actually called cigarettes in the book.
*Modern vernacular kept booting me right out of the story. The curses I could ignore; the use of "Sarge", "roger that", etc. I could not. These would have been fine in a more modern setting in our universe, at least, but not in an archaic fictional land.
*Again we're in a fictional world. So why is the Latin phrase "mea culpa" used?
*The humor could be really really irritating. The banter as blows were traded could be juvenile in nature. The joking was supposed to be funny, and sometimes it was, but other times it was just annoying. Or obligatory, if that makes sense. Some opponents/enemies would helpfully pause their actions in order to provide the good guys an opportunity to toss out yet another witty line. It was a little silly.
*Personality changes in the lead female character. She went from a nasty intimidating person to a beloved softy in record time. If I had blinked I would have missed the transition.

I think this might work better for a younger audience. Not middle grade but maybe YA, although it could be very graphic. Perhaps it should be marketed as New Adult. I don't fall within that target demographic.

I received this eARC courtesy of NetGalley. I wish that things had turned out more favorably.

The cover and title is what drew me to read this book, but unfortunately had to DNF less than half way through.
it was slow going at the start, just couldn't get myself to read for more than 20 minutes at a time.
Did enjoy the banter from Calais and Ban, but the Jasmine character really annoyed me.
Although I did DNF, If you like Fantasy, sci-fi and overpowered female characters then this book is for you.

This book made me feel I was among friends, great banter and real affection. To have those friends set down in a fantastic adventure just made it better. I cannot wait for the next book! Excellent writing.

Thanks to Netgalley, the author and or the publisher for giving me the chance to read and review A Bastard's Birthright.

It was one of the unique books that I have ever read and I loved it very much.

The author was amazing when describing people, places, etc.

I would genuinely recommend this book for the banter alone. However, in addition to the absolutely golden humor, there's also a solid and entertaining plot. The main characters, Calrius and Ban, are part of a marine company loaned out to a mage named Ferez to assist with the transportation of a mysterious artifact called the Key that does, well, something. While Ferez and his apprentice, Jasmine, attempt to figure out what exactly that something is, all involved parties are frequently thrown into mass amounts of chaos. And there is a lot of chaos to be thrown into.
This book has great friendship dynamics, the aforementioned wonderful banter and humor, and a whole bunch of action.
I could've gone without the romance plot but it wasn't a huge part of the book and it's nice that it was actually based on more than just physical attraction.