Official Review: Gift of Sight by Erin Manbeck

[saturday+deviant]

[Following is the official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Gift of Sight" by Erin Manbeck.]

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Gift of Sight is the first book in the Gifted Trilogy by Erin Manbeck. It centers around the 20 year old Regan and her life after she learns that she is not actually human, but in fact a Druid. And not just a druid, but the future queen. Not only does Regan need to take a crash course in all things druid, but she also needs to fight against the evil Shaman who wants to kidnap her and use her powers to control the entire world.

Gift of Sight starts out with a few chapters getting to know Regan, her boyfriend Sam, and her wolf-dog hybrid Jackpot. Her parents disappeared when she was a young girl and she was raised by her wealthy grandmother. The disappearance of her parents scarred her emotionally and so she suffers from insomnia and nightmares on a nightly basis. She comes to understand why her parents disappeared and why she suffers from insomnia when she discovers her Druid heritage. The rest of the book is a detailed narrative of her education in druid magic and history.

The story itself is a quick read and the history about druids is somewhat mixed with actual Celtic/Old Irish mythology and language so the stories feel true. The Tuatha Dé Danann are mentioned as well as the goddess Danu, and although they are not connected to Druids, since very little is known about them [at least according to wikipedia] I could almost believe it all when I was reading the book.

The only specific part to the book that I really liked was the inclusion of Celtic mythology into the story. I thought that having that added really gave the book more reality, if that makes sense. Knowing that the history in the book is one that is also partly in real life made me feel like if I went to Florida [the setting of the story] I could find Regan and Jake and be able to be a part of what is going on. I don’t think that I would have been as connected if there wasn’t a single grain of truth in what was being told in the mythology.

I do have to say, that the book overall was not horrible and I was able to read it quickly without becoming tired of the characters, but there wasn’t anything aside from the mythology that really stood out for me. The characters seemed a bit generic and the love interest was almost too obvious which wasn’t something that would cause me to stop reading a book, but it didn’t add to the charm of the overall story.

Even though I loved the addition of Celtic mythology to the book, I was not a fan with how much ‘history’ was given in the book. Some of which was repetitive in its information and just made me want to skip over the whole section. Even as I’m writing this, I’m getting flashbacks to the sheer amount of information that was pushed into certain chapters. This was one of the reasons that it felt more like a prequel than an actual book. There was very little action within the book and the threat of the shamans was minimal to the point where I did not worry at all for the safety of the characters. After all if they can spend hours on end talking about Druids and what happened to them rather than teaching Regan how to control her powers, then the treat cannot be too important. In fact, the ‘spirit’ of Danu has to kidnap Regan into a tree to give her important information that her companions keep withholding from Regan.

Another aspect to Gift of Sight that I didn’t like was the amount of time that was spent on the romance between Regan and Jake. Now, I am a huge fan of the romance genre, but I got a feeling that this was supposed to be a fantasy book. However, by the last four chapters of the book, the fantasy was really just in the background on hold, and the sole focus was on Regan and Jake getting to know each other and going on dates. It wasn’t even interesting dates or great amounts of angst. Nope, just them going to a restaurant and sharing feelings; it was all very mundane.

The last issue that I had with the book was the epilogue. I don’t think that it was necessary to the story. It seemed very forced from the way that the book ended in the last chapter. Of course, I can’t say what was in the epilogue, but I definitely think that Manbeck could have held off from adding this particular epilogue in favor of something more connected to what had happened with the characters so far. The epilogue was random and the shock factor made me confused at first and then by the end I just tried to understand why it was added.

The feeling I got, by the end of Gift of Sight, was that this book was more like a prequel to what is going to happen in the next two books, rather than the first main book in the trilogy. Yet, I still thought it was acceptable for a quick read. I don’t think that I would necessarily want to read this book again, but I would be willing to read the rest of the trilogy. This book gains enough interest for the next in the trilogy which is why I decided to give Gift of Sight by Erin Manbeck a rating of 3 out of 4.

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[Bookworm0266]

Great review!

[smokey188]

hmmm might have to read this one myself sounds like an ok read

[saturday+deviant]

Great review!

Thank you

[Norma_Rudolph]

Well written review. Thanks.