The Book of Deacon

Review of The Book of Deacon by Joseph Lallo

Overview from www.barnesandnoble.com: The tale of Myranda Celeste, a young woman orphaned by a century long war, and her chance discovery of a fallen soldier's priceless cargo. The find will change her life, sending her on an adventure of soldiers and rebels, wizards and warriors, and beasts both noble and monstrous. Each step will bring her closer to the truth of her potential, of the war, and of the fate of her world.

My Review:

The Book of Deacon seems terribly misnamed since the book starts off with our main character that is named Myranda. Myranda is young girl who is forced to wander through the world on her own after the death of her mother and uncle as well as the presumed death or disappearance of her father.

The world as Myranda knows it has been at war for over a hundred years so war has become a way of life for her people who represent an alliance of Northern kingdoms. They are at war against a Southern country known simply as Tressor. But Myranda’s main problem is not necessarily the war itself but the fact that she is against the war in general and thus does not take a side. Apparently the only thing worse than someone in league with the enemy is “sympathizer” which is what she has come to be labeled as.

She goes from town to town trying to scramble up some food to eat while attempting to hide her true feelings. Unfortunately it usually isn’t a long time before she lets her true feelings out and is either kicked out of the town or given bad directions to somewhere else.

When her luck seems to change for the better one day after finding a dead soldier whose money she can use as well as his sword, her troubles are actually only just beginning.

As I said earlier, the story seems somewhat misnamed as the character of Deacon doesn’t appear until around the second half of the book and even then the story still tends to be mainly told from Myranda’s point of view. Perhaps Deacon will feature more in the stories to come. I would guess so.

I am still not sure that I would be as interested in reading them. The character of Myranda seemed more relatable to me when she was an outcast but when it becomes clear that she is a wizard prodigy, not as much.

On the plus side the story is engaging. And some of the characters, including Deacon, are very interesting. And there is a dragon. I don’t know why but I like dragons.

Also, there is not any bad language or sexually explicit material thus far so it is a story that teens or older children could enjoy.

I can recommend this one. I am not so sure about future installments yet but if I do get around to reading one of them, I will post the review here.