Hello everyone!
Today is my stop on the blog tour hosted by The Write Reads for Haven by Ceril N. Domace. Haven was the 13th-place finalist in BBNYA 2022. Thank you to The Write Reads team for organizing this blog tour and sending me the materials, thank you to the BBNYA team for providing me with a copy of this book during the final round of BBNYA. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
BBNYA is a yearly competition where book bloggers from all over the world read and score books written by indie authors, ending with 15 finalists and one overall winner. If you are an author and wish to learn more about the BBNYA competition, you can visit the official website http://www.bbnya.com or Twitter @bbnya_official. BBNYA is brought to you in association with the @Foliosociety (if you love beautiful books, you NEED to check out their website!) and the book blogger support group @The_WriteReads.
Title: Haven
Author: Ceril N. Domace
Number of Pages: 280 pages
Genre: Fantasy
Age Category: Adult
Date Published: April 30, 2021
Buy the Book: Amazon
Add on Goodreads and TheStoryGraph
Most people think the fae are gone. Most people are wrong.
Owen Williams wakes after a horrific car accident to find his wife is dead—and somehow turned into a gryphon—and his kids gone after a home invasion turned horribly wrong. Shattered and reeling, he vows to do whatever it takes to find them.
When a fae scout appears and promises to reunite him with his kids, he doesn’t hesitate before joining her. But she warns him that if he wants to protect his family, he must follow the fae to their city, the hidden haven of Tearmann.
With enemies on the horizon, Owen needs to set aside his fears and take up arms to defend their new home alongside the people he’s always been taught were monsters—or he’ll lose everyone he’s trying to protect.
This was one of the books I read for the final round of BBNYA 2022. I’m very grateful that I got to read this book for BBNYA because it’s not the kind of book I would have normally reached for, but I ended up really enjoying it.
My favourite thing about Haven was the world-building. I liked Tearmann and how it was run and how the different species of fae existed together. I thought the idea of the change was unique and it added a lot of anticipation not knowing when a person would turn into fae or what species they’d become. I also loved that the world includes dragons because dragons improve almost everything.
At times, I did find the book to be a bit slow, but I think that’s because the author spends a lot of time in this book setting out the world and the different species of fae. I think that the rest of the books in this series are likely to be a bit more fast-paced because the world has been set up and it’ll be easier to dive into the action.
As far as the characters go, there were a lot to keep track of, which made things a bit confusing at times. I liked Owen and how determined he was to protect his family, though at times I found myself getting frustrated by his actions. I also liked a lot of the different fae that helped Owen and his family. I can’t remember any of the fae’s names, but I would be interested in reading a book of short stories set in this world, told from the different perspectives of some of the characters.
I liked that this book was about family, even if it was a family coping with unimaginable things. Owen would do anything to protect his family and his children share a close and loving relationship. I liked that throughout the action and world-building there were some normal domestic scenes like eating breakfast together or attending a party together as a family.
Another one of the things I enjoyed about this book was the theme of being thrown into adulthood too quickly and grief. Owen and his children are thrown into an impossible situation without any time to really process what is happening or how to handle it. They’re forced to grow up and basically give up their childhood as a result of the situation they’re in. I thought this led to some emotional and moving scenes and I thought the book handled it well.
Overall, I enjoyed this book and I’m glad I got to read it as part of BBNYA. I definitely want to pick up the sequel at some point because I’m curious about what happens next in the world and how Owen and his children continue to cope with their new lives in Tearmann.
Ceril N Domace is an accountant, the owner of the feline embodiment of violence, and a dedicated dungeon master. On the rare occasions she manages to free herself from an ever-growing and complex web of TTRPG, Ceril enjoys taking walks and griping that all her hobbies are work in disguise.
If you’re curious about the other BBNYA 2022 finalists, you can check out my posts below!
- Spotlight of Sacrifice by Vicky Walklate, the 15th-place BBNYA 2022 finalist
- Spotlight of Mercury’s Shadow by PJ Garcin, the 14th-place BBNYA 2022 finalist
Blog – Instagram – Twitter – Goodreads – Pinterest – Ko-Fi