Stephan DaviedCritiques

Mozan is a fantasy novel aimed for a target audience of very young teenagers; an audience left craving a magical power fix. I would never encourage someone not to read, but I would encourage readers to find a different book than this one.

The quality of writing was a little sketchy. The cover was catchy, but was perhaps the most exciting portion of this book. The book could have benefited from more careful editing; multiple simple errors could have been caught and eliminated before print. Pacing was a little jarring, bouncing from slow, predictable fantasy background to vibrant, comic book-like action scenes. The primary problem: the main characters were flat and almost universally irritating, causing me to dislike them almost from the start, and my opinion of them failed to change throughout the book. Supporting characters received worse treatment. The most interesting, promising premises of this book did not receive enough attention, leaving you to trudge through the book hoping for some further word of them. The villain was dastardly and evil, but not particularly interesting. The effort was sadly rather lackluster.

This book made me sad. I WANTED to like it, but there was nothing to like about it. For a young teenager, desperate for some magical sparkle, there are other, better books. Sadly, I can't recommend this one.

This story leads me to a bit of a quandary; while the book is clearly YA, it doesn't necessarily fit neatly into the box of young YA or YA intended for older readers. The story, while engaging, is a bit scattered in the beginning. For the first third of the book there is a new group of characters introduced in nearly each chapter. All of these characters are important to the overall theme of the story and each will be reintroduced later (but they are reintroduced in a manner that assumes you remember the details of the first short encounter). This leads to a great deal of confusion throughout a fair amount of the story. Once it is possible to keep the characters straight the story becomes rather engaging and quite endearing. If this were intended as a stand alone novel then I would tell everyone to look elsewhere, however, that is not the case. Davied shows throughout this novel that he has great skill for narration and the overall story arc throughout the book hints to a larger plan that could very well be amazing. This book (and eventual series) is definitely worth a read through (or two) but I strongly recommend not purchasing this book for someone without the patience to stick with a story. Thank you to Fyonhaireshizer Publishing for the opportunity to review this novel.

I enjoyed this book very much, and I can't wait to read the second book in the series. It's a page-turner with characters that have a lot of depth. The story kept my interest throughout.

I am normally a lover of fantasy books, however, I was disappointed by the lack of quality in this book. The plot line was very predicable and lacked flow. The story seemed to take sudden turns and characters seemed to make inconsistent decisions. I felt that the characters were one dimensional and lacked development. This may have been because so many were introduced at once. The language was also inconsistant and I had a difficult time discerning the setting of the novel. I believe the story has potential, but the writing was not well executed.

Mozan and the Return of Magic is a fantasy book for younger teenagers, however as an adult I enjoyed it. This is about five children of royalty who have special abilities or talents, kingdoms and an evil sorceress. The main characters are Mozan from the Kingdom of Mozolean, Harah of the Kingdom of Antorell, Jonas of the Kingdom of Jonatu, Lyra from the Kingdom of Zobora and Floro of the Kingdom of Zianna. The evil sorceress is Alexa, daughter of King Anzon and Queen Mae.The time has come for the coronation of Mozan's brother and everyone is busy; as a second son to the King and Queen, Mozan is ignored when he tries to tell his father that his tutor, Stilpon, has disappeared when they are playing the game the Dragon Hero.
The five children are kidnapped and taken through a portal to the Kingdom of Fyonhaireshizer. There they find that there are really 11 kingdoms and not just the one they live. By using their talents: Mozan is a warrior, Harah has the talents of a beast talker, Jonus can create weather, Frolo is a tree shaman and Lyra controls fire, they try to work together to fight the evil Alexa.
The book had demons, gargoyles, evil, good, fantasy, magic and dragons. Mozan and the Return of Magic has good descriptions such as a smell like rotten cabbage and vile green smoke that I think this age of kids would like. There is a map at the front of the book and it adds to the story.
The book reminds me of a Harry Potter type book and it keeps the pages turning. I first though it would be like the games the kids play but soon discovered it was not. There will be other books to follow in this series.
A good book for the Christmas Holidays or a birthday present. This will keep the kid's attention and encourage them to read. It has messages of good and evil, working as a team and not realizing how important someone was until they are gone.
I received a complimentary copy of Mozan and the Return of Magic to read and review from Library Thing and the author, Stephan Davied. The opinions are my own.

This book started out a little slow for me. I don’t know if it was because I was just really tired, or because introductions to main characters just seem slow. However, after the first forty pages or so, the story picked up for me and I found myself devouring every page until the end.

Davied does a brilliant job of storytelling, and an even better job at world building in the Allian Kingdom. Even without the map at the front of the book (which was great), I could get a clear picture on the lands and where the Kingdoms were placed beside of one another. The story was a page-turner, full of adventure, mythical creatures, and magic. It definitely had a bit of a Tolkien feel to it, in that it’s a fantasy full of believable make-believe. ;)

Aside from their adventures, my favorite parts was the dynamic personalities and character development of each of the children in the book. I think my favorites would have to be Mozan of Mozolean (the main character), as well as Harah of Antorell. Harah is continuously maturing and coming into her own throughout the entire novel, though it’s subtle. Her love for animals also softened my heart toward her. Then there is Alexa, who is a devious, yet delightful antagonist to the story. She’s definitely a woman scorned, looking for her own revenge.

I have to refrain from saying too much so I don’t spoil the story for anyone. This is a wonderful fantasy children’s book that is a promising start to a series.

I thoroughly enjoyed Mozan and the Return of Magic, the initial book of the Lion Warrior Chronicles by Stephan Davied. The story introduces us to Prince Mozan who, along with other abducted royal children of neighboring kingdoms, join together in a journey to return to their homelands and defeat the evil Queen Alexa of Fyonhaireshizer. The children – Mozan of Mozalen, Frolo of Zianna, Harah of Antorell, Lyra of Zobora and Jonas of Jonatu - are each the second born of their respective royal families and possess magical powers that they discover and hone along their journey. The story is fast paced, entertaining and highly inventive and imaginative. Davied introduces a myriad of fascinating characters, both good and evil, which have definitely sparked my interest to read future books in the series. The book falls into the “fantasy adventure” genre, sort of along the lines of Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter. I definitely recommend this book to others and look forward to Davied’s next book!