The Dream Walker Returns by Michelle Murray – Review

Blurb: 

The Darkness has waited a long time to return to Mystica. Now, with the help of the wizard Shadow it has found a way back into the land. It will stop at nothing and no one to darken all of Mystica. Miranda is called to Mystica to help fight the Darkness. Her friend Brian follows. Does he mean to help or hinder her? Can Miranda stop the Darkness and save Mystica, and if so at what cost?

My Review:

While I understand that the book is meant for people a lot younger than me, I also realise that the target audience is still a more advanced reading level than the author credits them. The writing is simplistic and sparse on detail, with very little taking place through most of the book. I mean, I’m still not sure how old Miranda actually is – She seems to be a teenager, and simultaneously seems to be an adult. Oh, sure, there’s a quest to defeat evil, and a quest to find the stones, and all sorts of stuff happened, but there wasn’t really a collective emotion tying the reader to the page. It’s all ‘bam, pow, kersplat!’ instead of taking the time to connect the reader to the characters.

That makes it an automatic 3-star.

The scenery and the settings were great, there’s a good quest buried in the pages – but it definitely needs a good going over, an expansion, and a rethink on target audiences, and the author’s use of the exclamation mark in out-of-places.

If you can get past all that, it is a good book. But it will take some getting used to.

3.5/5

Buy Link:

Amazon