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The Fall Of Ossard (2009)

by Colin Taber(Favorite Author)

3.41 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

1440475040 (ISBN13: 9781440475047)

languge

English

genre

Fantasy

publisher

Createspace

series

Ossard Series

review 1: The Fall of Ossard is a story about gods, great magic, good and evil, religious zealots and the the part we play in it.  Juvella is a 17 year old living in the city of Ossard she’s willingly drugged by her mother at her debut to make her more amiable to guys so she can wed well and boost her fathers business. Juvela lets herself go along with getting drunk and sleeping with a playboy while being sheltered in a rose garden. It causes a scandal between the families, both of different classes and they two are forced to marry despite there being no love, also the night they slept together was the first night they met. Not only were they drunk and doing what teens think is cool they were also witnessing the death of a red headed boy and being witnesses to some old and bad ... moremagic ritual that puts a binding cast on Juvela so she can’t speak of what she saw. Naturally, Juvela get’s pregnant and has a daughter they name her Maria after Pedro the playboy’s Grandmother, since that first night in the garden, Pedro the playboy was shipped of to a monastery to kill his spirit and make him a mute ghost, which he pretty much is for the rest of the book, occasionally speaking words of spite and trust, both of equal measure towards the latter half of the snail paced first installment of a trilogy. Pedro, his parents, their daughter, Juvela’s parents are all pretty much just names floating about with no real purpose other than to push her forward to save them, which she spends so much time talking about and having repative conversations she hardly does and then when she does get around to finding them, they are moved and it’s on going boring, prolonged will they get them alive or won’t they, by the time they do you don’t really care and it kind of ends that way.   The main focus of the book is that Juvela is not just a plain albeit typical teenager with a young baby, she is also a new god, an avatar, she can draw great power from the celestial playing field but she’s still new, untrained and can’t control it very well. Despite this she follows her instincts and gathers a following which ends up in the Fall of Ossard because the whole city is divided into fractions. 3 major players, 2 parts ruled by different gods but collectively for the god of death, and Juvela, the only one who’s concerned about saving her kidnapped family, saving the city and saving the people that make up the city, the ones that are worth saving that is. The bloodthirsty idiots can kill each other, it saves time and her own conscious.   A promising premise but a disappointing read. I hate to give negative reviews, especially of debut authors but I feel cheated having read this book a day wasted! I read it because I like supporting new authors and Goodreads authors, I read it because I hate giving up on books, hoping they might improve just around the corner. But it didn’t. I don’t think I’ll even bother waiting for the 2nd and 3rd installments, it’s just not working for me. I do however wish the author good luck in the future and never give up writing.
review 2: I'll admit that I was first interested in this book by Facebook advertising. I'm a little embarrassed by that, but it got me. So be it. I read the first chapter and I was hooked. Absolutely rich, very dark, story-driven, could-not-put-it-down because I HAD TO KNOW what happened next..... True, not the most rich character design or world building I've ever seen, but absolutely story-driven with an epic grandeur that I truly enjoyed. And the author did a magnificent job, if not with the original character design, but with the growth of the characters themselves, which a lot of authors fall flat with. I'm reminded a lot of Robin Hobb (if the reviewer below will forgive me, but I see the comparisons), Sara Douglass or Carol Berg. Give it a shot, either way. My only complaint is that I hate cliffhangers, and I'm starting to get to the point, as a reader, where I'd rather wait for the series to be out in its entirety before dealing with the wait for the next bit of an incomplete story. ;) less

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