Saturday, June 4, 2011

Book Review #69: Song of the Ovulum by Bryan Davis

Song of the Ovulum
by Bryan Davis



Genre: YA Christian Fantasy
Ages: 12 and up
Book 1 in the Children of the Bard Series.
I received and advance e-book copy of this from NetGalley to review.

SPOILER ALERT! Do not read any further if you have not read the Dragons in Our Midst Chronicles and the Oracles of Fire Chronicles.

Publisher's Description:
It has been fifteen years since Billy and Bonnie Bannister helped repel the demonic assault on Heaven. Now they and Ashley Foley sit in a maximum security prison where the authorities conduct experiments on them to learn the secrets of long life. Earlier, the world’s acceptance of dragonkind crumbled, and the Enforcers took the infant twins born to Billy and Bonnie and stole Excalibur, hoping to develop a weapon to battle the dragons that are sure to try to rescue their allies. All the while, a great secret from the past is being revealed to Bonnie through a dream. Joran and Selah, teenaged children of Methuselah, have been trapped in a strange world for centuries, yet still able to manipulate certain events in our world during that time.

Walter Foley finds the Bannisters’ son and hopes to use his dragon traits to help him rescue the prisoners. In the meantime, an ancient demon locates the Bannisters’ daughter and plans to use her to help him discover the hiding place of the most powerful ovulum in the world and squelch its protective song. With that ovulum in his possession, he will be able to conquer and control both Earth and Second Eden.

The fate of two worlds now rests on the Bannisters’ two teenagers who must use their dragon traits and their innate courage to battle demons, a sorceress, and soldiers in a military compound in order to rescue parents they don’t even know.

My Review:
My first reaction to the beginning of this book was, What! How did that happen? When? What??? And then I leaned in closer and kept reading to find out. I went through the nearly 500 page book in a just a few hours and then wanted to bang my head against the wall. Have I ever mentioned how much I hate cliffhanger endings when I have to wait for the next one? Well, I do. And Song of the Ovulum, lovely a book as it was, has a terrible cliffhanger ending. And I, silly person that I am, read an advance review e-book. Which means that I have to wait until July before the book is even out, and then who knows how long before the next one is released!

I liked Matt and Lauren, but they were a little too much like a miniature Bonnie and Billy. The rest of the cast of characters was mostly made up of old friends and enemies that, if you have read Bryan Davis's other novels, you have met before. I found Joran and Selah's storyline to be a little confusing at times, but still interesting and enjoyable.

It seems that all of the books I am reading lately turn out to have cliffhanger endings. Bother. Well, this book was quite lovely and entertaining with good plot and characters. I would recommend it to anyone else who has read and enjoyed the other works of Bryan Davis.

Content Ratings: Profanity, Sexuality and Violence
1 (mild) through 10 (extreme).

Profanity:
I give this a 1.10 for some insults.

Sexuality:
This book gets a 2.10 for references involving a prostitute.

Violence:
I rate this book a 6.10 for murder, battle and torture.

                           Lieder Madchen

2 comments:

  1. I cannot wait to read this??? where do i read the whole book online?

    ReplyDelete
  2. You can only read it online if you are a book reviewer and have a NetGalley account, and that was a limited thing anyway so it is probably no longer available. However, the book is now on shelves!

    ReplyDelete