The Dragon’s Blade: Veiled Intentions by Michael R. Miller – A Book Review

Blurb:

Rectar has always had his sights set on conquering the human lands. His demonic invasion of the west is gaining momentum – an unrelenting horde unhindered by food or sleep. Now, only the undermanned Splintering Isles lie between the demons and the human kingdom of Brevia. If the islands fall, the rest of Tenalp will soon follow.

Author: Michael R. Miller

Publisher: Acorn Independent Press

Release Date: 10/02/17

Genre: Fantasy

Pages: 450

My Chosen Format: Kindle

My Rating of The Dragon’s Blade: Veiled Intentions: 4.5 out of 5

Purchase: Amazon UK, Amazon US, Book Depository

 

Review:

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Michael was kind enough to give me a copy of the Audiobook version of the Reborn King (my review of that can be found here). This time he’s let me get my hands on the e-book version, so I have been able to dive into his world in both formats. Michael has once again treated us to a fantastically beautiful cover design. I need the name of his artist for my own work haha!

In my review of The Reborn King, my main negative was the total lack of depth to the demonic horde. In Veiled Intentions, Michael has addressed that negative wonderfully. The demonic horde has been fleshed out, we now know far more about them than we did before and, the pleasant surprise of demonic sub-plots has been added. So not only do we have more depth, but we have demonic perspective as well.

Veiled intentions was, for me, a great read. Michael has a very strong writing style well suited to fantasy. He is an author that I would say is very easy and enjoyable to read. One I hope to read again in the future.

One negative for me in this piece was a bit of an info-dump moment. One character has been taken by their enemy and is having dinner with them. They then proceed to tell said character secrets that probably shouldn’t be divulged. It just seemed like a ‘what the???’ moment and one that left me scratching my head as to why it happened. I also felt as though the halfway point kind of felt like a mini-ending. For that reason, I struggled to get back into the second half of the book straight away. It just already felt like a big powerful moment had happened and kind of made me feel like the book was two short books put into one volume. When I got back into the flow of reading it, I was hooked again.

Michael expands on all aspects of his world in veiled Intentions, from dragons, to fairies to frost trolls. Every race has an interest factor that keeps the reader pushing on. I also couldn’t quite choose what factions were my favourite.

The novel is laced with pretty epic scenes that stick in the memory and, not only epic scenes, but epic moments. The simple growth of characters as they band together for instance. Certain races intermingling was done very well and, as a reader, you could tell the author had put a lot of work into the past and present of each race. It’s also nice to see a book where the characters bad habits/traits are written as well as their good qualities.

The one thing that impressed me the most, and it’s kind of just going over what I have already said, is the depth of characters. Not just the main ones, but across the board. They all feel like a lot of work has gone into making them feel like real, relatable people.

I look forward to reading the final instalment of the trilogy, especially seeing as how Michael has set it up so well with the end of this book.