Beyond

Zaera seems like an ordinary girl. She’s come to stay at the Nonesuch orphanage after falling out of the sky from the back of a mythical flying creature. She only eats bugs and nettles and she burrows under the house rather than sleep in the bedroom she’s been given. But apart from these worrying details the orphans want to believe that she’s perfectly normal.

Until strange and terrifying things start to happen, leading them to question how normal Zaera actually is. They soon discover she is a princess from another time. With a lot of dangerous people coming after her. And by taking Zaera in, her enemies have become theirs.

There’s no choice - with their world being destroyed by unknown forces they have to collaborate with the despised City kids, becoming entangled in an adventure that’s exciting, scary but that may also be deadly.

I really wanted to love this book and there were elements of it that I really liked. However, these intriguing and interesting elements were not sustained and consistent throughout the book which took away from the overall appeal of the story.

I fell in love with the characters, Bee in particular, but for me the story was told from too many perspectives and in such a fractured way that it made the plot hard to follow.

There were also parts of the novel I felt irrelevant to the main plot that could have been left out and allowed the storyline to flow better.

I enjoyed the world created on the edges of the Beyond and there were some great characters and ideas but they just fell short because of the writing style/structure.

#bookreviewsbymrsc #beyond #philiprossnorman

I don't have a great deal to say about this book. There was nothing wrong with it and there were some interesting concepts and scenes and several of the characters were fascinating but as a whole, the story just didn't work for me and it felt disconnected and bland in a lot of places.

I probably wouldn't read anything else by this author but it was a decent enough read for me.

I liked this overall. I have to be fairly careful about the Fantasy titles I choose, since it's not my first choice of genres. Beyond has some good moments, and is pretty well written. I wasn't always engaged, but would recommend this to Fantasy fans.

I really appreciate the free review copy!!