Tuesday, May 24, 2011

The Map Across Time




The Map Across Time by C.S. Lakin: This is the second book in the Gates of Heaven Series, however even without reading the first book I didn’t feel I was at a disadvantage reading this one.

The story encompasses a magic map that take you through time, the pure love of two siblings that binds them together through adversity, and an ailing kingdom with a curse upon it. The characters were believable and driven plausibly by their own motives toward a personal agenda. The plot was pleasantly fresh with its own small twists and turns, however several points in the book could be guessed well ahead of time due to a medium level of predictability. The predictability didn’t damage the book in my eyes, that was simply how it was.  Lakin did a good job keeping the plot moving to the 3/4s mark of the book giving us just about the right amount of action and plot to keep the story going. However, I found that once myself as a reader got to where it felt like the end of the book should come, it wouldn’t. Instead she prolonged the wrapping up of the story in a massive time travel chain and(I feel like) forced the ending. I believe she tried to connect too many loose ends in the last forty pages and instead of a mosaic, left us with a knot. This, in my opinion, was the greatest error of the book: The story ran its route well, it wanted to end; Lakin didn’t.

The book is mainly marketed as a fairy tale, but besides a talking pig, I thought it fit just as well into the fantasy genre; albeit strange fantasy, but fantasy just the same.

I’d give this book a 3/5 stars, if the book had ended 50 pages sooner it easily earns a 4/5.



I received this book  from AMG publishers and the views I expressed are  my own.


Find it here and more like it here

4 comments:

Jake said...

Hmmm...how did you get books from AMG? I sent them an email once, but I never heard back...

Good review. :)

Precentor said...

I waited two months for a reply on this one :) Sometimes they're fast, sometimes not. :( Just go to their Imprint Living Ink Press and use their "Want book reviewers" email. :)

C. S. Lakin said...

I welcome anyone who wants an advanced copy of my books for reviewing and blogging. Contact me at cslakin (at) gmail.com with your name and address and I will personal send you an ARC (advanced copy) a couple months before release so you can review the books. Book three comes out this fall: The Land of Darkness. Thanks!

Precentor said...

Thanks so much for the comment Mrs. Lakin! It's always special for me when authors comment on my blog.

I may indeed email you, thank you for the offer!


Millard