Review of We are Voulhire: A New Arrival under Great Skies

This forum is for volunteer reviews by members of our review team. These reviews are done voluntarily by the reviewers and are published in this forum, separate from the official professional reviews. These reviews are kept separate primarily because the same book may be reviewed by many different reviewers.
Forum rules
Authors and publishers are not able to post replies in the review topics.
Post Reply
Refilwe Nyakale
Posts: 35
Joined: 10 Jul 2022, 10:02
Currently Reading:
Bookshelf Size: 28
Reviewer Page: onlinebookclub.org/reviews/by-refilwe-nyakale.html
Latest Review: We are Voulhire: A New Arrival under Great Skies by Matthew Tysz

Review of We are Voulhire: A New Arrival under Great Skies

Post by Refilwe Nyakale »

[Following is a volunteer review of "We are Voulhire: A New Arrival under Great Skies" by Matthew Tysz.]
Book Cover
5 out of 5 stars
Share This Review


We are Voulhire: A New Arrival Under Great Skies by Matthew Tysz is the first instalment of a fantasy series that introduces the protagonist Galen Bray into the flourishing country of Voulhire while still expanding on the world-building and fleshing-out characters. The world brought by the book displays a society culminated by imagination (magic), science and spirituality and has been intertwined with philosophy.

The story centres around Galen Bray, a refugee who escaped his war-ridden home and immigrated to Voulhire. Galen arrives at a small town in Voulhire to inherit the assets his great uncle has left behind for him, and to become a blacksmith. There Galen meets Rowan, who is the executor of his late uncle and now his companion to teach him the customs and culture within the prosperous land. The story also gives us multiple viewpoints from characters around the country of Voulhire for readers to understand the world they are immersing themselves in. The story has different worlds which are, the physical world known as the "Cosmos" and a magic world filled with madness known as "Coramentis". Magic is borrowed from Coramentis and is used to influence the physical world. A former Lord close to the new home acquired by Galen threatens to disrupt the peace long benefitted by the prosperous land with his connections, influence and power. The kingdoms council works to find the remnants of an ancient group that has incited acts of terror throughout history which are much closer to them than they think.

The world-building as well as the character-building in the book is phenomenal. The story plays out through multiple areas characters' experiences, and in each scene, the culture and beliefs in the area are easy to perceive through the experiences of the characters. I liked how even the geography throughout the country gives a reasonable cause for the situations occurring within the story. Even though some characters are not linked to each other, their storylines seem to build up to the point where readers can predict their necessity and relevancy to other characters later in the entire series.

The book tends to slow the pace down to either describe or explain a concept about magic, the different worlds or the religion within the land of Voulhire. The descriptions of how society functions and the history behind it are overflowing, contributing to the lack of progress in the story, which is to be expected from descriptive pieces but I felt it could have been compressed in this book and fleshed out in other books of the series. The missed commas did not take away from the pleasure I had from reading the book, because I understand that it has to set the foundations of its world as the first book in a series. I give We are Voulhire: A New Arrival Under Great Skies a rating of 5 out of 5 stars.

I recommend this book to young adults who enjoy fantasy or anyone looking to immerse themselves in a new fantasy series.

******
We are Voulhire: A New Arrival under Great Skies
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
Post Reply

Return to “Volunteer Reviews”