Nicholas lived a very ordinary life in Cambridge – until the
fateful day his parents died.
After which Sam, his parents’ oldest friend, swoops in to
try and get him out of Cambridge, to go stay with a godmother he’s never heard
of in a large house in the countryside. What should be a simple trip is made
harrowing by attacks and the revelation that his parents did not die by
accident – they were killed by demons.
Which is what Sam, as a Sentinel, needs to battle and oppose. First and foremost that means getting Nicholas – who is special – to safety. But then he needs to help the besieged sentinels, including those who have been attacked and the increasing number who are dying
Unfortunately if I had to sum up this book in 2 words
they would be “vague” and “slow”.
In this world we have evil dark demons of badness who are
doing dark and nefarious things. They’re either coming to Earth or want to come
to Earth or are on Earth and we wish they weren’t and they’re going to do bad
stuff while here
What that bad stuff is, I don’t know. What these demons
are, I don’t know. What these demons can do, I don’t know. They’re demons, they’re
served by Harvesters (I don’t know what they are) and Familiars (I don’t know
what they are). And they’re evil and want to do evil things.
Then there are the good guys called the sentinels. They
fight the bad things, for reasons unknown but positively related to the bad guys
being bad. I don’t know what the sentinels are, how they started, what their
symbols are, what their resources are, what they do or how they do it. But they’re
the good guys and they fight the bad guys. They also serve something called the
Trinity – I have no idea what that is beyond the fact it probably isn’t the
Christian Trinity. Esus is also involved as well – Gaulish Celtic god (not that
the book tells me that, I just know the name. We just have Esus. He wields a
mask. He’s important somehow).
Then we have Nicholas, the 15 year old. His parents were
sentinels (tragic parent death) and he is special. How he is special I don’t
know, but he was born special. I don’t know how. He may be able to do things. I
don’t know what. But his specialness is such that the bad guys want to kill him
and the good guys would rather that didn’t happen.
Did I mention this book is vague? Because it’s really really really vague. The generic nature of so much of this book and the complete lack of any attempt to develop or characterise the world its set in makes it incredibly frustrating to read. What is happening? Why? How am I supposed to get invested in this? Will someone please explain things?!
Then there’s the slow. The first half of this book is
spent with Nicholas grieving for his dead parents (who die in the opening
chapter so I have no idea what Nicholas is other than mopey and grief striken)
and then wandering around while every doesn’t tell him anything. Sam, Liberty
and other side characters occasionally wander off to be intimidated by
murderous demons (who, because of the vagueness, could just as easily be
murderous knife-wielding psychotics) and pretend to Nicholas that everything is
fine. At one immensely frustrating moment, Nicholas actually finds a journal of
past Sentinel activities and doesn’t read it to is. Whether he reads it to
himself, I don’t know but the reader gets no enlightenment. This is
frustrating.
At the half way point we get the big reveal from the spooky woman who is way older than she looks – DEMONS ARE REAL!
What… you wanted more? Tough, that’s the big reveal.
DEMONS BE EVIL AND THEY BE OUT THERE. Now run along.
Along the way the ghost of an old woman possesses a cat
because… I have no idea. Reasons. Because we needed a disapproving cat glaring
at things. Nicholos shows us that he’s the spunkiest of them all and decides to
react to the whole demon revelation by having nice long hikes in the snow
around the safe house and making friends with complete and utter strangers and
deciding to trust them. As you do. Of course, it would help if someone told him
that the demons were in the habit of walking around in human skin to gain your
trust but ABSOLUTELY NO-ONE TELLS ANYONE ANYTHING! But this damn fool
spunkiness is necessary to actually shoe horn an ending into this book
And that ending is horrendously anti-climactic and I’m left feeling that even the worst the bad guys can throw at the world can easily be defeated with a high powered rifle or an axe.
More interesting than Nicholas is Sam and Liberty who are
investigating stuff for reasons (lack of detail error, boredom levels growing)
which all goes wrong anyway. I think it’s supposed to be ominous foreshadowing
except for the complete lack of any kind of detail and the general swimming
through molasses nature of the plot.
In terms of inclusion, Liberty is Black, and she’s
skilled and capable. She’s actually a decent portrayal if we got to see more of
her and, despite having to be rescued one time, she’s the only woman in the book
who isn’t cowering and timid. Nicholas’s mother is timid, the wife who hides in
the cupboard (so little engaged am I that I can’t remember her name) and the
500 year old Jessica who cowers in the face of evil and hides behind a 15 year
old boy. The whole book is full of straight people as well.
Sam is a rare inclusion in that he is a very active old man. While he often wonders if he, at 70, can possible do what he has to do, he still steps up time and again, fighting hard, leading and continuing to bring the fight to the darkness. It’s one of the better portrayals of the elderly I’ve seen in the genre.
In the end, I don’t even know what to say. I can’t even
say this book has potential because I’m not told enough about it to assess
that. I have a generic bad guy force, a generic good guy force and a teenaged
chosen one. I couldn’t engage with any of the characters or their issues; I
couldn’t really believe any of them. About the only one I have any sympathy for
is the cat, everyone else is too under explained or has too much mopiness
without me getting to know them in any meaningful manner. The plot bemuses me with
its big gaps and reliance on blithering character foolishness and in the end it
closes with a grand anti-climax.
A copy of this book was provided by the author for a review
