I received this book for Christmas from my mom; she went to the local bookstore and just happened to pick something that I would love without me providing a detailed list of titles and authors. A Christmas miracle! 🙂
In this book, our magical hero Kell lives in London at a time where different worlds are layered on top of each other. The geography of each London is the same, but everything else is drastically different (including the magical abilities of the residents). He is only one of two magical humans called Antari who can freely travel between these worlds, and has the job of relaying messages between the royal families of each London.
When the rulers of one of the Londons gets greedy for power and wants to rule all of the worlds, a dark magic is used in order to attempt a takeover. Kell, along with the scrappy heroine Lila that he meets in his journeys, has to destroy the dark magic before it destroys him and everything he loves.
Overall, this book was really enjoyable. Colourful characters (and my feminist heart always loves a strong female character who does her share of rescuing our hero – not always being the one who needs to be rescued. Huzzah!), vivid descriptions of the different worlds, purely evil villains, etc. There was just something about it that didn’t grip me to the point of staying up until 2am to find out what would happen next (pretty much my requirement for a 5 star rating). All the ingredients are there, and I suspect that it might have more to do with my reading headspace at the moment. So I’m going to give it the benefit of the doubt. The second book is on my birthday wish list, so if mom comes through again I’ll dive into that one in a couple weeks.