Today I’m posting my seventh Finalist review for #SPFBOX (here’s a link to the Finalist table).  I’ve already posted a review for The Humane Society for Creatures & Cryptids (Teraglossa #1) by Stephanie A. Gillis,  The Forest at the Heart of Her Mage by Hiyodori, Oathsworn Legacy by KR Gangi, Wolf of Withervale (Noss Saga #1) by Joaquin Baldwin, Runelight (The Aenigma Lights Book 1) by JA Andrews and Gates of Hope by JE Hannaford.  I have two more reviews yet to post so, without further ado let’s get to my review for The Tenacious Tale of Tanna the Tendersword by Dewey Conwy and Bill Adams :

Firstly here’s the description (courtesy of Goodreads), the cover and a link

Galdifort Quillpen has grand dreams of writing epic tales of heroic deeds, just like his famous aunt. Unfortunately, he’s been assigned to Tanna the Tendersword, an excruciatingly carefree would-be-champion who can’t seem to find a qualifying entry-level quest.

When things are at their most miserable, the young Questers meet an enigmatic old woman who offers Tanna a quest: follow a peg-legged, sword-wielding rooster to help save a crying mushroom lost within a haunted forest. Tanna heroically accepts, regardless of how incredibly unsafe the odd quest seems.

But Galdifort’s fears become reality when a sorceress sends her fog monster and lizard henchmen after them. Only a true Champion should confront a sorceress, and, in his eyes, Tanna is not up to the task. But if he wants to write his chronicle, Galdifort must learn to do something he certainly isn’t comfortable doing — trust in honest friendship with Tanna the Tendersword.

He’s just a chronicler, after all, not a hero!

My thoughts

I was pleased to see this book become a finalist because I don’t think we’ve seen a MG book before and I was excited to pick it up because it seems to have such a buzz surrounding it.  This is a lovely book, well thought out and beautifully illustrated.

The plot is about two characters, a partnership if you will.  Tanna and Galdifort.  A champion in the making and her chronicler.  The two seem very ill matched, which is perhaps the beauty of the story, and the main gist is that in order to level up the two of them have been sent out to find a quest, complete it and return successful.  It seems simple enough really and all would be champions and their chroniclers are put through similar trials.

So, although Tanna is named in the title Galdifort is the one narrating the story here.  The two seem ill matched in many ways.  Tanna is reckless and has a devil may care attitude to danger seemingly believing herself to be invincible.  Galdifort on the other hand is a bag of nerves and something of a grumpy so and so.  He is wallowing around, trying not to fall into the mud and failing miserably whilst Tanna is dashing about like a maniac and usually getting them into trouble.

My feelings whilst reading this were a little bit all over the place.  I started off well and was keen to meet our two characters but I confess I did start to go off the boil a little.  I think the humour might not have worked for me and I did feel that the plot was a little slow and, sometimes, the characters, annoyed me a little.

Now, I will say that MG is not normally my typical type of read so whilst I was really curious to see how this would work for me I must say that given my lack of experience in this genre I’m probably not entirely sure what to expect, so take my thoughts with a huge grain of salt.

Overally, this is a lovely book, I’m not sure whether the pacing would be an issue or not to a younger audience and the tempo certainly picks up in the final chapters, but it didn’t entirely charm me the way I thought it would.  That being said I recognise it’s a ‘me’ thing and I think this is a fun story, well written and well presented.

I received a copy courtesy of the author, for which my thanks.  The above is my own opinion.

My rating 6.5 of 10 stars