Hidden Realm: Legends of Lightning Book 1 by T.R. Saluf - Book Review
"Legends of Lightning: Hidden Realm Book 1" by T.R. Slauf
“The next Realm Walker will bring with them a storm. Lightning must fight the Crimson shadow, or the lands will be cast into eternal darkness.”
3.5/5 stars
Most fantasy books, no matter the subgenre, take me a chapter or two to settle into the world before I understand the rules. I'll admit that I didn't think I'd like LoL from the first few chapters, mostly due to repetitive words within the same sentence and a lot of telling vs showing. Esther, the main character, also took a while to enjoy (she was a librarian so that helped!). It wasn't until small clues in the modern world and her dreams/nightmares hinted at the real story to unfold that I got it. And then it was more than worth it!
Slauf tells more than shows because this is a fairy tale retelling and her writing embodies that. Once you get past the first few awkward chapters, the entire story comes into its own and actually makes perfect sense. She writes it like the old style of fairy tales. Of course Esther in the book picks up an old copy of Grimm's Fairy Tales to decipher; if you've ever read the original stories and not the softened versions we've come to know over the years, then this is Slauf's realm. And it works beautifully after that!
Hidden Realm is a dark fantasy, a mystery, and the kind of retelling that I crave and read all the time, where the author takes our known ideas of archetypal characters and gleefully twists them into their stories. Even though a main character is a Huntsman, Slauf takes her time getting to the other characters we know and love from fairy tales, and I found myself reading faster then stopping to ponder her interpretation of fairy tale tropes and imagining who might come next.
The reader would be helped to ease into this world by more archetypal chapter names and fairy tale illustrations at chapter titles a'la "Bloody Chambers". I get why the cover is dark, because the story fits that feeling, but that comes through in the writing and the reader needs a little help to embrace the Grimm style of storytelling right away.
But truly, if you love fairy tales and dark fantasy, this book is great. It made me dig my Grimm's Fairy Tales book out of a box (we're in the middle of a move) and reread some!
Content Warning: sexual abuse and assault (and verbally it seems to come out of nowhere 1/4 of the way through the book, but that helps put the reader into Esther's head.)
Read more at https://www.trslauf.com/
When she was a child Esther was plagued with vivid nightmares, now they have returned to haunt her. Blood-thirsty monsters chase her through a forest of dead trees while a mysterious hooded figure stalks her. After awaking with fresh wounds from her dreams, Esther searches for the truth about who she is and the Hidden Realm she is destined to save.
Join Esther on her journey of self-discovery as she travels into a world long forgotten. Unsure if she can trust her hooded guide, she is hunted by unknown enemies and smothered by expectations of grandeur. Deciphering friend from foe, she travels the lands trying to unite kingdoms torn by pride.