Hope's Shadow Book

Well when you have a kindle you find yourself looking for cheap/free books with good reviews. That normally means you end up reading fantasy since there are so many titles in this area. This was one of them. Yikes.

The book read like the plot of a bad video game. Four groups of people, each with special powers, live on a big island. Apparently they don't like each other, but they have never ever fought each other. And they didn't realize that one of the groups was way stronger than all the others. So strong that when they do decide to attack they wipe everyone else out. Easily.

For each race there is a super-powered individual. The only thing that can stop the evil king is one super-powered girl. Surprise surprise she does. Along the way we learn that the other two races' superpowers are really lame and not at all powerful. One of them is so awesome that the guy with superpowers has been living his whole life not realizing his powers are super. Despite using them all the time. And no one else realized it either. He wasn't hiding. Just lame.

At least the writing was mostly ok. Arenson has a tendency to try to use fancy words. Other than that the writing is pleasant. The character development was, well, video game-esque. Not much happens as far as emotional development. Good guys are good; bad guys are bad. There is some attempt to make the bad guy seem not as bad because he's being manipulated by his father, but he's still bad.

Don't bother unless you are bored.