Official Review: Engaging Enchantment by Beth Durkee

Ejgard91 · Post by **Ejgard91** » 12 Oct 2015, 16:20

[Following is the official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Engaging Enchantment" by Beth Durkee.]

3 out of 4 stars

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Engaging Enchantments by Beth Durkee is lovely book one to her series. Durkee starts out by introducing the readers to the story by starting with two hobgoblin children getting ready for bed. They get into a typical sibling quarrel over the bedtime story for the night. In the end, the youngest gets to pick and he chooses his favorite story, the one about the keeper. From there, it transitions to the main story. The princess, Elysant, is introduced, as well as her peasant love, Darragh. After he becomes an orphan, he goes to the docks to have a life as a sailor. He ends up joining a foreign crew and travels overseas to the ship's homeland. Being from a different land, he is unfamiliar with their royalty and because of that, he meets and falls in love with the princess. Even though she is already betrothed to a duke, Elysant strays from her path and chooses to be with Darragh. But something happens and they are stopped. Her only choices now are to behave like a dutiful daughter or to rebel.

The scene switches to Melador, the head Druid. There is some background given on magical creatures and the tolerance (or lack thereof) of magic users. Melador is the last great user and it is he, readers discover, that is the cause for Elysant's elopement to dissipate. His grand nephew, Barwick, enters the scene and learns of Melador's magic, of his helpful magical creatures, and that magic is in his heritage, waiting to awaken in him. Barwick thinks that Melador is crazy, though he accepts his grandmother's magic amulet to humor her. Barwick returns to the palace and unknowingly says the magic words that wake up the magic in his blood. The rest of the story is his discovery of his magic and of the task of getting the princess safely across the sea to her betrothed. The hobgoblin children to whom this story is being told, make their appearance a few more times throughout the book. There is a cliffhanger at the end that reveals that perhaps this is more than just a made up story and does, in fact, affect the children somehow.

The potential that this book has is wonderful. It has a great plot and good storyline, but it needs to be filled out a bit. Having the main story set within another story is fun, and the way that it was ended makes me wonder even more about the purpose behind that, making the reader want to know what is going to happen. The magic usage could have been better explained or entered into differently. It is clearly important to the story, but does not flow as much as I had hoped it would. In fact, the greatest purpose it served, as far as I can tell, was stopping the elopement at the very beginning of the book. It was hinted to be valuable and dangerous as well, but there was not as much follow up to those ideas after they were presented.

Elysant, the princess, was a character that I would have loved to get to know better. She is this 16 year-old girl who is promised to one for the sake of politics, but has fallen in love with another because he has seen her as a person and not an advantage in life. Being caught must have been terrible and devastating, especially while not knowing what was happening to her love. That is about all we readers know of her, though she is presented as a main character in the beginning. I would love to learn of her personality, the love she does or does not have for her family and kingdom, why she fell in love with a peasant, and her plans for her future. I want to know her as a character, but instead I was just left with tidbits here and there.

All in all, this book was a great start to a series. I would rate this 3 out of 4 stars. I believe this book could be really great if it is was developed more. A map would also be very helpful for a book like this since there are quite a few places named and traveled to.

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Engaging Enchantment
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kimmyschemy06 · Post by **kimmyschemy06** » 22 Nov 2015, 05:08

It seems like the author has great ideas about this book. The characters are charming and the romance sounds endearing. Nice review!

anonanemone · Post by **anonanemone** » 23 Nov 2015, 13:51

This description makes me think of The Princess Bride a little. The book sounds like one I might like. Maybe there will be more of the development you were looking for in the next book, Ejgard91. Good job on the review!

LivreAmour217 · Post by **LivreAmour217** » 23 Nov 2015, 14:14

Great review! This story sounds like a lot of fun. You said that little information is given about the princess, but I wonder if more will be revealed about her character in the following books of the series? Sometimes things like that happen.