Aeneas Renoldus is very different from the other children. He is the prince of the Tainaetor Empire. Living his trouble-free life into adulthood, he becomes a mage. He never thought of taking the throne. He likes casting arcane magic and studying nature. Right until his father dies. One day to another, he is left behind with his younger brother, Eliot. Still grieving the loss of his family, Aeneas is quickly put in danger when his brother was crowned instead of him. Aeneas starts to fight for justice but realizes he has to flee the castle to stay alive. His only hope is a dragon, who could give him the power for revenge.
Plot
The author does a great job immediately establishing tension and stakes. There is an exciting story here that was so much fun to discover and I revealed in each twist and turn, even some of the ones I had predicted. The pacing is excellent throughout the story, keeping me engaged from the beginning. There were some flash-forwards and flashbacks that I think would have read better if they were told in real-time and as this book was translated from Hungarian, there were certain phrases that made me pause and reread, but these were both easy to overlook.
Characters
Aeneas as a main character was difficult to connect to, mainly because I felt as if he didn’t match his age. At the beginning of the book, he’s celebrating his 18 birthday but he acts more like someone in their early teens. Likewise, his younger brother who was 13 at the start of the book, felt as if he should be under 10, based on the way he acted. I also felt that characters often didn’t react appropriately to a situation. For example, people were often gasping at things that didn’t seem gasp-worthy. But this could have been due to a translation error.
Setting
I struggled to feel settled into this world, partly the plot was so fast-paced that there wasn’t much time for description and partly because the dialogue was a mix of stiff and formal language mixed with more modern slang, specifically the curse words that often pulled me out of the setting. Early on, it’s difficult to understand the magic system, as the time that Aeneas learns his magic is during a flash-forward sequence so the reader doesn’t get to see that process.
My Recommendation
Legacy of Grarean - A New Beginning is the first book in Oliver Deutsch’s debut trilogy. This series was previously written in Hungarian and has been translated for English audiences. Because of that, there are some language barriers that affect the plot's pacing and characters. The plot is exciting and will keep you turning pages, though the characters didn’t feel authentic to their ages and the I struggled to connect to the setting.
