#Review: The Grail Court (The Thalo Series) by Kasey Grantham

Spark of a Great Series But Falls Short

2 1/2 hearts ♥♥

Normally I post reviews of the more adult genres since that's what makes up the bulk of my TBR lists on my Kindles. I do read YA too so I thought I'd give this one a go. The blurb really didn't tell me much at all, but I was still intrigued enough to try it. 

Blurb

What if the infamous "other side" was real? What if you could escape your high school existence just by closing your eyes? 

Would you? 

What if pure evil and the fate of the rest of the world was waiting for you on the other side of your eyelids? 


Would you choose: The ordinary... or extraordinary?



Overall, I have to give this 2 1/2 stars. While the premise of the story has promise, the delivery falls flat. The formatting issues alone made it difficult to read. I have three different types of kindles and on each one the layout of the paragraphs looked terrible and choppy. I'm not sure if the use of mixed lower case and capital letters in the chapter titles ( sORT oF lIKE tHIS) was meant to be artistic or cute, but it was extremely jarring and pulled me out of the story. Multiple grammatical and style errors fill the pages in this one and could have been avoided with the help of an editor...one who knows fantasy in particular.

The teenage heroine Cassie seemed to have some spunk but she was never fully developed. None of the characters were taken further than the superficial. The author made sure we knew exactly what color hair and eyes all of them have, but never gave any insight into what makes them tick. As a reader, I couldn't get invested in the characters enough to care what happened to them...but the spark is there. The author just needs to develop her skills as a storyteller further. She has a potentially fabulous fantasy series here but as it stands now, it's lost in a world that's TOLD to us instead of SHOWN. Telling me Cassie is sitting outside listening to the night sounds is rather boring, but if the author would have described those sounds in detail, I could have pictured it all as her characters were living it.

I'd be willing to read this book again if it's rewritten and edited properly to bring out the story I know is there. Bring me into the world so I can see it in my mind and don't just assume I can see what's in yours.

My advice to this author is to invest in the cost of professional editing, join a few author groups where they critique her work so she can learn and improve her writing style, and either take the time to learn how to format a file to upload to Amazon or hire someone to do it.

I do not recommend this book as it stands now nor will I read the rest of the series if they're written like this one.