Skip to main content

Blog Tour: Haven: Chronicles of Warshard #1 by Katherine Bogle: A Book Review

Haven: Chronicles of Warshard #1
Author: Katherine Bogle
Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy
Publisher: FriesenPress
Release Date: May 10, 2016
Pages:208
Source: This book was given to me iRead Book Tours in exchange for an honest review.
Synopsis: Haven (Chronicles of Warshard #1) is the 2nd place winner of World's Best Story!

     Princess Haven was never meant to be Queen.

     Her immortality has saved her time and time again, but when the last of her royal family dies at her feet, she is next in line to rule a nation on the brink of war. With no formal training on how to be Queen, Haven must rise to the occasion with the help of her best friends, and personal guard, or risk losing everyone she has ever loved.

     With war to the West, and no escape to the East, the evil tyrant Kadia sets her sights on the six kingdoms. Haven's neighbors are quick to fall under the swords of Kadia's shadow soldiers, leaving a sea of bodies and a clear path to Haven's only home. Haven must make a choice; take her people and flee to the foreign Republic across the sea or lead a last stand against a powerful dictator.

      My Review: Haven was never meant to be queen. Yet, with her curse of immortality and with her family gone, she is forced to take the throne. However, she does not know how to rule. Immediately, when she is on the throne, she finds out the her kingdom is in danger. Soon, she goes to war against an evil queen who is determined to destroy them all. Can Queen Haven defeat the evil queen and save her kingdom?

     Queen Haven is an unlikely heroine. She is thrust into a position that she has no training for. She is uncertain in her position as queen. She is often clueless and leans on the advice of others. Yet, she has a good heart. She loves her friends and her kingdom. She is willing to do everything to help others. She gradually begins to have self-confidence and learns to trust herself. While there were some actions that I did not agree with, I find that she did it on good intentions. Nevertheless, I thought that she grew stronger as a queen. Thus, Haven is a character that audiences will root for and will like to see how she grows as a character.

     Overall, this story is about love, friendship, responsibility, and self-acceptance. The message of this book is to believe in yourself. I found the book to be very slow. It is not until halfway through the book that it picks up. I think I would have enjoyed this book much better if it was shorter. I also thought that the secondary characters needed to be fleshed out. I would have loved to have known more about the villain, Queen Kadia, as well as other characters, such as her love interest. I also thought that the romance was forced because it was instant-love and needed more time to develop naturally. I also thought the world-building needed a bit more work, for it was not really fleshed out and needed more details about the six kingdoms. As I read it, I was confused about the places. This needs more work for an epic fantasy and in a war story, the places are very important. Haven has elements of action, adventure, political and court intrigue, and romance. I recommend this book for those who enjoy reading about unique heroines, coming-of age stories, and journeys of self-discovery.

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars


Buy the Book: Amazon, Barnes and Nobles, Book Depository, Indigo Chapters

About the Author:




Katherine Bogle's debut young adult novel, Haven, came second in the World's Best Story contest 2015. She currently resides in Saint John, New Brunswick with her partner in crime, and plethora of cats.  Visit her website, Facebook, and Twitter.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Potiphar's Wife (The Egyptian Chronicles #1) by Mesu Andrews: A Book Review

  Potiphar’s Wife (The Egyptian Chronicles #1) Author: Mesu Andrews Genre: Historical Fiction, Christian, Biblical Fiction Publisher: WaterBrook Release Date: May 24, 2022 Pages: 453 Source: Netgalley/Publisher in exchange for an honest review. Synopsis: One of the Bible’s most notorious women longs for a love she cannot have in this captivating novel from the award-winning author of Isaiah’s Legacy .       Before she is Potiphar’s wife, Zuleika is the daughter of a king and the wife of a prince. She rules the isle of Crete alongside her mother in the absence of their seafaring husbands. But when tragedy nearly destroys Crete, Zuleika must sacrifice her future to save the Minoan people she loves.       Zuleika’s father believes his robust trade with Egypt will ensure Pharaoh’s obligation to marry his daughter, including a bride price hefty enough to save Crete. But Pharaoh refuses and gives her instead to Potiphar, the captain...

The Life and Times of Hannah Crafts: The True Story of The Bondwoman's Narrative by Gregg Hecimovich: A Book Review

  The Life and Times of Hannah Crafts: The True Story of the Bondwoman’s Narrative Author: Gregg Hecimovich Genre: History, Nonfiction, Biography  Publisher: Ecco Release Date: 2023 Pages: 430 Source: Netgalley/Publisher in exchange for an honest review. Synopsis: A groundbreaking study of the first Black female novelist and her life as an enslaved woman, from the biographer who solved the mystery of her identity, with a foreword by Henry Louis Gates Jr.       In 1857, a woman escaped enslavement on a North Carolina plantation and fled to a farm in New York. In hiding, she worked on a manuscript that would make her famous long after her death. The novel, The Bondwoman’s Narrative, was first published in 2002 to great acclaim, but the author’s identity remained unknown. Over a decade later, Professor Gregg Hecimovich unraveled the mystery of the author’s name and, in The Life and Times of Hannah Crafts, hefinally tells her story.   ...

The Rose Code by Kate Quinn: A Book Review

The Rose Code Author: Kate Quinn Genre: Historical Fiction Publisher: Harper Collins Release Date: 2021 Pages: 635 Source: Netgalley/Publisher in exchange for an honest review. Synopsis: 1940, Bletchley Park, Buckinghamshire.        Three very different women are recruited to the mysterious Bletchley Park, where the best minds in Britain train to break German military codes.       Vivacious debutante Osla has the dashing Prince Philip of Greece sending her roses – but she burns to prove herself as more than a society girl, working to translate decoded enemy secrets. Self-made Mab masters the legendary codebreaking machines as she conceals old wounds and the poverty of her East-End London upbringing. And shy local girl Beth is the outsider who trains as one of the Park’s few female cryptanalysts.       1947, London.        Seven years after they first meet, on the eve of the roya...