Book Review: Isle of Swords

I knew nothing about this book when I begged and pleaded for it for Christmas last year. The reason? The Door Within trilogy by the same author, Wayne Thomas Batson. I bought those without really knowing what they were about, either. This was because I went to a bookstore where L.B. Graham was having a book signing. As all of my friends were HUGE fans of L.B. Graham, they elected me to cart all their books up to Enumclaw to have them signed.

Wayne Thomas Batson happened to be there, along with Bryan Davis, Christopher Hopper, and a few other authors. During the course of the event, Mr. Batson gave a dramatic reading. It was so impressive that I knew I had to get his books. And he can sword fight. +10 cool points right there. So I got The Door Within trilogy there, and they were awesome. So I had to get the two Isle books.

Now. On with the review of the first Isle book.

Title: Isle of Swords
Author: I think you know already
Favorite character: Cat or Red Eye
Favorite sentence: Hard to choose. I liked a lot of them. :)

The story is an epic treasure hunt on the high seas. Plenty of pirates are after this fabled treasure and the ebil rat (the bad guy) will stop at nothing to get it. Some clues to the treasure are left with a near mortally wounded 16-year-old kid who remembers nothing of his past.

What I liked about the book: It had just about all the things I like in a story: guns, swords, tons of explosions (oh, YES!), kidnappings, noble and courageous feats, and likeable characters. Although this Norwegian girl was sad that the Viking in the story was the ebil rat. And while the ebil rat is QUITE unlikeable, I pitied him and wonder if he could ever be turned to good. Maybe?

I had one fear throughout the book. I knew that Cat (the character with amnesia) would at some point discover his true identity. I was afraid that when he learned his name, he'd switch over to it and not be Cat again. Thankfully, he didn't! What a relief! His real name is cool, but Cat is cooler. :-)

David will laugh if he reads it, because he knows my dislike for multiple exclamation points, but the story was good enough for me to be able to ignore them. ;-)

It was a great book from a Christian point of view. I think y'all should go read it. I'm tagging the people that I think will be particularly interested.