This review is for the entire series and will be posted to each book. I flipped between the Kindle and audiobooks for each book, depending on my circumstances, but the audiobook narration was so good that sometimes I’d listen even if I was in a position to read. I really loved this series and wish it had and was getting more press. Hey you word of mouth folks! Talk about this series! As an avid fantasy reader, I’m a bit embarrassed that this series has been around since 2012 and I hadn’t read it yet. Also, unlike some, it doesn’t feel aged.

This is a big and truly epic series

While there were some elements that I struggled with, for the most part these books hit me right in my epic fantasy heart. There was the coming of age, the new powers save the world thing, the quest, the evil ruler, the warrior woman, the evil church thing and other fantasy tropes, but I never felt that they were overdone. Pretty much every major character seemed like ‘real’ people to me—flaws, irritants and all. And they stayed true to who they were. While the ‘good guys’ weren’t all good—the bad guys were god-awful evil. Some right away and others with a slow and dreadful spiral into pure malevolence. I let out more than one verbal OMG and just as many laughs.

One of the things that I enjoyed was the fact that the series took place in a world that had enough shades of our own world to give the narrator and story-telling a (somewhat stereotypical) base offering the user solid frame of reference. IMO, it enabled the writer to skip long expositions of world-building. And the narrator took full advantage of that, doing a brilliant job on the Indian, Germanic, Italian another accents used—at least to my American ear.

The cast of characters was large and I had to go back and forth a couple of times to make sure I had the ‘right’ one, but it seemed like almost all of them got their HEA or just reward as appropriate. This man knows how to wrap up a series because things got REAL in the last book! It’s so enjoyable to walk away satisfied from a series end. You don’t have to love what happened to your favorite character, but you should walk away full. 😊 There may have been a couple of omissions, but I’ve filed them away in my head for my next read just in case I ‘missed’ them. Because yes, I’ll be reading this series again. For now, I’m moving to his sequel to this series—The Sunsurge Quartet (unfinished as of today, 8/2018).

The only think I could say that I didn’t enjoy in this book were the sex scenes, and I was thankful that they’d tapered to ‘not much’ by the last books in the quartet. But that may just be me. I never thought that fantasy needed sex scenes explained—I’m pretty much a fade to black girl for books and movies. The other adult aspect to note was the use of adult language, which frankly seemed realistic without being overdone.

All in all, I look forward to more from David Hair and have added him to my list of followed authors.
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This review is for the entire series and will be posted to each book. I flipped between the Kindle and audiobooks for each book, depending on my circumstances, but the audiobook narration was so good that sometimes I’d listen even if I was in a position to read. I really loved this series and wish it had and was getting more press. Hey you word of mouth folks! Talk about this series! As an avid fantasy reader, I’m a bit embarrassed that this series has been around since 2012 and I hadn’t read it yet. Also, unlike some, it doesn’t feel aged.

This is a big and truly epic series. Each book is over 600 pages.

While there were some elements that I struggled with, for the most part these books hit me right in my epic fantasy heart. There was the coming of age, the new powers save the world thing, the quest, the evil ruler, the warrior woman, the evil church thing and other fantasy tropes, but I never felt that they were overdone. Pretty much every major character seemed like ‘real’ people to me—flaws, irritants and all. And they stayed true to who they were. While the ‘good guys’ weren’t all good—the bad guys were god-awful evil. Some right away and others with a slow and dreadful spiral into pure malevolence. I let out more than one verbal OMG and just as many laughs.

One of the things that I enjoyed was the fact that the series took place in a world that had enough shades of our own world to give the narrator and story-telling a (somewhat stereotypical) base offering the user solid frame of reference. IMO, it enabled the writer to skip long expositions of world-building. And the narrator took full advantage of that, doing a brilliant job on the Indian, Germanic, Italian another accents used—at least to my American ear.

The cast of characters was large and I had to go back and forth a couple of times to make sure I had the ‘right’ one, but it seemed like almost all of them got their HEA or just reward as appropriate. This man knows how to wrap up a series because things got REAL in the last book! It’s so enjoyable to walk away satisfied from a series end. You don’t have to love what happened to your favorite character, but you should walk away full. 😊 There may have been a couple of omissions, but I’ve filed them away in my head for my next read just in case I ‘missed’ them. Because yes, I’ll be reading this series again. For now, I’m moving to his sequel to this series—The Sunsurge Quartet (unfinished as of today, 8/2018).

The only think I could say that I didn’t enjoy in this book were the sex scenes, and I was thankful that they’d tapered to ‘not much’ by the last books in the quartet. But that may just be me. I never thought that fantasy needed sex scenes explained—I’m pretty much a fade to black girl for books and movies. The other adult aspect to note was the use of adult language, which frankly seemed realistic without being overdone.

All in all, I look forward to more from David Hair and have added him to my list of followed authors. ( )

Mage's blood crept up on me slowly; like a cool evening after a hot afternoon. The first few chapters kept me dubious on whether or not I would enjoy this book--but the writing and characterization eventually propelled me forward. Sometimes, I can see a book's plot for a mile away, but David's storytelling and plot twists actually surprised me (and in some cases, left me heart broken.) I can see David quickly becoming a favorite author, and I look forward to devouring the next Mage's blood books. ( )

Giving up at page 89. There's nothing really wrong with it - aside from the odd endlessly-claused sentence - but there's nothing about it that really grabs me and makes me want to stick around for 670-odd pages.

In the first 90 pages, we had some pretty big info dumps, which I am generally ok with, because fantasy worlds can be big. But I like the info dumps to highlight interesting questions I want to see explored, and mostly all that was highlighted in this one was how strongly a representation of the Crusades this whole setup was.

Ninety pages was five chapters, each one introducing a new character, with some loose connections between some of them. First up was a capable and ruthless (and sneaky) spymaster, and I thought this was probably going to be my cup of tea, but later on we got to a whining student-wizard (complete with Malfoy-enemy and pureblood problems), a man who spends a whole chapter selling his daughter to the highest bidder, and then said daughter who spends her chapter having hysterics and begging for her prince (her former fiance, previously noted to be a hotheaded guy who thinks with his fists) to come save her. When the sixth chapter opened as the former fiance's POV, that's when I decided I fundamentally didn't care about anyone or anything in this book. I just hadn't read anything very compelling so far, and at 89 pages, that's too long without.

Which is sad, because there are a few mysteries at the root of the special physics that looked really interesting.

Dit is echt een boek, de eerste van een serie, waar je in moet komen, maar als dat lukt na een bladzijde of 50 is veel duidelijk en gaat het lekker lezen. Fijne ouderwetse fantasy, met magiërs en landen die met elkaar strijden. Direct maar door in deel 2 ( in Nederland zijn alle delen in twee boeken uitgegeven) ( )