Book Cover
Title La légende oubliée
Author Carolyn Chouinard
Cover Art Carl Pelletier
Publisher Éditions de Mortagne - 2010
First Printing Éditions de Mortagne - 2010
Book Cover
Title Le duel des apprentis
Author Carolyn Chouinard
Cover Art Carl Pelletier
Publisher Éditions de Mortagne - 2011
First Printing Éditions de Mortagne - 2011
Book Cover
Title Le retour du captif
Author Carolyn Chouinard
Cover Art Carl Pelletier
Publisher Éditions de Mortagne - 2012
First Printing Éditions de Mortagne - 2012
Category Young Adult
Warnings None
Main Characters Imaelle, Maxime, Zelma, Thomas, William, Megan, Demian
Main Elements Wizards
Website ---




Click to read the summaryLa légende oubliée

Click to read the summaryLe duel des apprentis

Click to read the summaryLe retour du captif




A group of teens meet up at a campground. They discover they are draw to hidden crystals, one for each of them, and to bring them together to revive a huge crystal pyramid. This pyramid causes the engery levels in our cells to vibrate faster, giving us the ability to reach the fourth dimension...which apparently gives powers like healing or telepathy, and if the teens are successful, they will vibrate all the way to the fifth dimension where they will encounter angels and become immortal. There's also a race of small, hairy, invisible people who need the crystal reactivated so the the rainbow bridge it produces will allow them to return to their home in the fifth dimension before their entire species fades away.

Whew.

Ok, the premise is a bit eyebrow raising. But it's a fantasy, so you take the wacky premise, no matter how nonsensical, accept it as fact, and then enjoy the rest of the story. And that I did, I had fun following the teens around as they tried to locate those gems, and of course dealing with budding romances (without the annoying angst) at the same time. And while it is challenging enough for the characters to figure out what is going on and to locate the crystals, there's someone out there trying to stop them too...it took me a whole of 10 seconds to figure out who that would be, ah well.

The second book I didn't like as much, it felt more contrived. I mean, what society would pick their grand leader from a pool of teenage apprentices? Supposedly the leader would be the wisest, the most skilled in their powers, the one who would teach others...but these are teenagers, they haven't even finished their own schooling yet. How, out of the all the people available in the society would they make the best leader, when there is already a council where you could promote someone from (if apprentices were added to the council I'd be ok with the idea). Its one of those silly young adult things where adults are useless and only kids can save the world. And of course our protagonists, who have only discovered their powers a few days ago, manage to hold their own against people who have been training their whole lives. They had some help, but still, bit hard to believe.

The other problem I had was at no time did I feel the year was 1168. It wasn't because they had modern conveniences, and of course they essentially have magic, but the protagonists adapted so quickly it wasn't like anything had even changed. Maybe because people teleported rather than used horses to get around, some aspects of a historical city were missing to really make me feel they time travelled rather than just popped out in a parallel world overlapping our own. And not a single problem with language even with a near millenia gap in time?

But on the whole, much as I had issues with details, I enjoyed the adventure well enough. I've put them back into the book exchange box where I got them in the hopes that someone else will enjoy them as well.




Posted: March 2024

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