Book Review: The Sword and The Flame (The Forging)

In a world where magic and the sword rule and dragons are forgotten, a band of friends find each other but can they overcome their own fears and trials in time to fulfill their destiny? Their adventure begins in The Sword and the Flame: The Forging. Before a weapon can be used, it must be forged in the fires of life.

The Forging
Publication Date: 2012
Pages: 216 (ebook)
Part of Series: The Sword and the Flame #1
Purchased: For Review by the author
Rating: 3.5/5 stars
Buy: Amazon (US) || Amazon (UK)

REVIEW:
Found this book thought the amazing Emlyn Chand, and since she said to try i thought to give it one more chance. There are also words like "destiny", "dragon", "flame", so how can something go wrong with that combination?

What stand outs more for me at the book is the selection of characters. Or better the races. There is a team of a magician, a halfling, a dwarve, a priest and a barbarian kind of guy. All of them are so different in characters, ideas, beliefs and make an amazing team for an adventure. My favorite of all is Janessa the halfling of course. She is so funny, and clever and cute. She made the dark scenes lighter.

Apart of the great variety of the characters, there is also a story of adventure to be told. We start firstly by getting to know the characters and how they are connected and meet, so we can understand later how they come all together for some treasure hunting. My favorite part was, when they started searching in the caves where all the bad things started to happened as it was expected in an adventure like it.

Now there was only one certain scene that confused me but as a beta reader, when i informed the author (and after he talked with some other readers too), he decided to re-write it and make it more understandable. I've read the new scene too, and it now it's all clear :)

A good adventure which both stays close and has new ideas to what we know in epic fantasy. Great characters too who made the book easier and the story goes before you even notice.