Ancient legend tells of an army of knights that will remain sleeping until the last days.
The knights are waking up.
A homeless man is stalked by a pale, wraithlike creature with a mouthful of needle-sharp teeth. Maimed animals and a host of suicides cluster around a mountain in Scotland. And deep beneath the cobbled streets of Oxford, a malicious hoard besieges a hidden city.
Freya Reynolds is a university student with a touch of OCD and an obsession with myth and folklore. Daniel Tully is living rough on the streets of Oxford, waging a secret war against an enemy only he can identify. Years ago, they found themselves in a world few know is real. They have since gone their separate ways and tried to put that adventure behind them.
But the mythical world is now bleeding into our reality-a dark spiritual evil that is manifesting itself in forgotten corners of the British Isles. Alex Simpson is a Scottish police officer who specializes in hunting mythical creatures. Together, they must confront the past, the present, and points beyond to defeat the ultimate threat to humanity.
Nothing they've seen so far prepares them for what awaits . . . in The Realms Thereunder.
MY REVIEW:
Star Rating: **
I’ve read one of Stephen Lawhead’s books in the past (The Bone House) and enjoyed it. So when I saw that his son, Ross, was coming out with a book, I was interested. The synopsis intrigued me as well—knights that are destined to awake in the last days…are suddenly waking up? Yep, sounded pretty cool to me!
While for me, personally, The Realms Thereunder
didn’t live up to all my expectations...I think this has more to do with the fact that this just isn’t my genre. I think this will be the last book of this type that I try—not that this is at all the author’s fault. It’s just not for me.The way the story jumps back and forth between the past adventures of Daniel and Freya’s, and their present adventures was, in my opinion, confusing. Once I figured out how the book worked—every chapter switching off between “Before” and “Now”—I understood it more, but I felt the jerking back and forth kept pulling me out of the story. I would have rather the author separated the two adventures and given them each their own book. But…that’s my opinion!
There is a lot of descriptions within The Realm Thereunder, mainly due to the fact that Lawhead created so many amazing people and places. It became a bit drawn out in places, but I have to admit that because of it, the things that Daniel and Freya experience really sprang from the pages and came to life. Be prepared to experience an amazing world from the imagination of Ross Lawhead!
I reviewed this book for Christian Science Fiction & Fantasy Blog Tours. Special thanks to the publishers, Thomas Nelson, for sending me a review copy. It was not required that I give a positive review, but solely to express my own thoughts and opinions of this book, which I have done.
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