A couple years ago, I stumbled upon Divine Summons on Goodreads. I was impressed by the strength of the prose and the story. Rebecca P. Minor did a pleasant job at it.
Premise & Worldbuilding
Divine Summons has a classic fantasy atmosphere with elves, dragons, monsters, and magic. I'm a sucker for fantasy tropes, and the immersion had me sold within the first chapter! Traveling between elven cities, ancient caverns, and dark forests—the story and pacing never turned stagnant. There's plenty of lore that kept me intrigued, not to mention the splendid battle scenes and dialog.
Characters
Taken from a (mostly) first-person POV, the story conveys excellent character emotion, dialog, and prose flow. The cast of characters provided conflict, worldbuilding, and comic relief details that had me reading for hours, quite literally! One issue was the shifting from first-person to third-person POV throughout the story. Most readers would gawk at this—and I certainly did—but I overlooked it in favor of a story that held me fast.
Magic System
A soft magic system governs Divine Summons, with whimsical, flashy outcomes and unspoken costs. The god, Creo, governs the faith-based school of magic in this story. Albeit, the magic performed some cheap saves for characters in some scenes. The author could have worked the magic better into the conflict and story, rather than have it as a lever to fix plot or character-conflict issues.
Conflict
Tension and pacing were solid. The characters found themselves in plenty of horrid situations that left me on the edge of my seat. The expositions and inner struggles were well done, and complemented the strong cast of characters. Immersion had me turning pages, particularly the fight scenes, which were also excellent. Battles were endowed with plenty of details, but never too many to make them cumbersome.
Overall Review of Divine Summons
The Good
The characters, pacing, tension, and immersion painted an addictive story. Details on lore and worldbuilding enhanced this, providing an enjoyable read from start to finish except for a few scenes. Battle chapters were excellent.
The Bad
The shift between first-person and third-person POVs felt jarring and marginalized the main character in my opinion. Some of these third-person POVs were somewhat unnecessary, slogging the pacing big time. The magic system came off as a prop to save the main character at worst, and a flashy addition at best.
The Ugly
The story had a few graphic scenes, but that was it.
Divine Summons was enjoyable, despite its shortcomings in its magic system and POVs. The rich worldbuilding had me hooked, and the sword fights and dialog scenes were pleasant. For any fantasy lover, Rebecca A Minor has a great series that's sure to delight readers who can overlook its blemishes.
