Hearth and Pages: The Elven Tales: The Company of the Rose by Fabi Ghittoni

I received a free e-copy of this book from the author in exchange for an honest review

The Elven Tales: The Company of the Rose tells a story about a 17 years old girl named Prudence Clarke. With her mother died when she was little and never knowing the identity of her father, Prudence lives a seemingly normal life in Cambridge with her best friend’s family. But everything change when a series of kidnapping happened in her city. One day Prudence was brutally attacked, and saved by some strangers who brought her to a world that should not exist. A magical world of elves, faeries, giants and other magical being. Prudence now got tangled into a war where she has to play an important role to save the world. So now, she embarks a journey accompanied by The Company of the Rose, brave warriors that will fight by her side. As a chain of strange events happened on her adventure, Prudence is about to unravel some mysteries that will turn everything she believed about her existence upside down while trying to save the world.

First of all, this book has one of the most beautiful design ever. Not only the cover, but also the illustrations and the page designs on the inside. I was stunned when I started this book, because of how beautiful this book is. Like seriously, book design goals.

Okay enough gushing about the design, and let’s talk about the story. the premise of the strory is really good. Though I have to say that it started not really good, but as you go on and mysteries are starting to get revealed the story keeps getting better. Which is actually great, because it gives the room for more story development on the next book. That being said, there are many parts where I feel like the story is too rushed. I think there are many exciting parts in this book that should be explored more by the author, but instead I feel like they’re getting clipped. With some parts of the story being rushed I also feel like there are some gaps in the story, which also affect my opinion towards the characters.

As much as I want to love the characters in this book, I feel a bit emotionally detached from them. That’s because I feel like the building of their personality and characteristic in this book is being clipped and rushed. That being said, I do have some favorite characters in this book. Sadly, I can’t say that my favorite is the main character. My favorite characters in this book are a very well-resourced and intelligent healer and an unapologetic great female warrior with amazing skill in archery. The first one reminds me of Hermione from Harry Potter, in a sense that if she’s not in this book, all other characters will probably die. And the second one, for me, is what would you get if you mix Katniss Everdeen with Johanna Mason from The Hunger Games. I love both of them and I hope that the author will dig deeper into their story in the next installment. I also would love to see more diversity in this book.

The world building in this book is good, but a bit confusing. There are two worlds in this book, the human world, and the world of magical creatures like elves, faeries, dwarves, etc. My main problem is there are lack of explanation of how the two worlds collided and connected. To be honest, I was also confused about the time period. Judging by the ways the characters talk, I thought the story was set in older time period, but then it turns out the story set in the present time. There are also some parts that made me wonder about the cultures and technologies in both worlds. Which I wish the author would explained more.

In conclusion, The Elven Tales: The Company of the Rose is a pretty good first book. It has a big potential to be a great fantasy series. I just wish that the author will dig deeper into the story and not rushed it on the next book.