The author kindly gave me a copy of his book, Keeper of the Stones, to read and review.


I’m not sure where to begin. This book is long, over three hundred pages and has an interesting idea behind it. That said, I really wanted to like this book, but there’s so much in it that needs improvement.

First, as I mentioned the book is over three hundred pages long. The length isn’t what’s wrong; it’s the excessive amount of filler in the book. The book is overloaded with description and internal dialogue that is not necessary, making the story mostly telling and hardly any showing at all. When I read books, I don’t speed read or skim read. But with this book I skim read, easily picking out the key points because there were so few of them, and still I understood the story. The descriptions and internal dialogue could have been cut by half, and there would have still been too much padding. This is the one major thing that really affected my enjoyment of this book.

The other thing was the author’s over enthusiastic use of created other-worldly names. He threw them into the story one after the other so that I didn’t even bother reading any of the names when presented after a time. And one odd name that was added was the name of a female warrior in the other world. All the characters had made up names, but the female warrior’s name was ‘Melissa.’ I don’t know what the author was thinking.

The next issue, were the changes of point of view. A chapter would start out in the viewpoint of one person, but suddenly switch to another person's POV with no warning, or be so ambiguous that I had no idea who’s POV I was reading, and then suddenly switch to another character’s POV.

There is a story somewhere in this book, buried deep underneath the massive amount of description and internal dialogue, you’re just going to have to toss out over half the book to get to what’s going on. The idea for this book is good, but unless it gets heavily rewritten and re-edited, I’m afraid I can’t recommend this book to anyone, it has too much that needs to be fixed.


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This is my book and I've agonised over rating it myself. I have seen on this site that most authors do however and so I give it 5 stars; one of the many 5 star ratings on Amazon.co.uk is shown below.
It was penned for teens and young adults. It's a bit of fun and escapism, nothing more.

For a first time author this book is real surprise, i bought it for the wife as she reads many books of this type however i was taken by it straight away and have now finished it.
Fluid and well written the tale works well and draws the reader into the world of the stones and the characters with ease. ( )

Not fair to rate my own book but 32 ratings on amazon.co.uk and most are five star so I've taken the liberty of posting for one of those. :-) ( )

When Jake and his best friend, Ben, find a magical box of gemstones in Jake's grandfather's attic; the action begins. Jake and Ben get thrown into a strange world that is in the midst of a war. As the "Keeper of the Stones", Jake is expected to save this world from the evil King Vantrax.

Can Jake and Ben follow the right path to save this world, and possibly their own world?
The two main characters are relatable, likable, and fun. The story is easy to follow and well written.
Part 1 of 3: must be read in order. These are not stand alone books.

CAUTION: Parental discretion, this story has violence, death, and some swear words.

Suggested for 12 and over. ( )

The Keeper of the Stones is about two 15 year old boys (Jake & Ben), who while cleaning an attic stumble upon a sort of- Pandora's box. Upon opening this box, and Jake finding out he is now the keeper of the ridiculously powerful contents inside, they are ambushed by enemy soldiers and are forced to enter the realm within the box, Now, not only are they being hunted, but they must allude their villains in a different world with different languages, and the inevitable feeling that they'll never know who it is they can actually trust. (Not to mention that if they mess up, its only the fate of the entire world in their hands.)

This book is a good YA quick read for anyone who loves the idea of adventure in a completely new world. Very reminiscent of The Seekers' series, the author grabs your attention and gives many points of views and characters that enable you to imagine each and every individual person. Some grammatical editing could be done, but its not enough to deter from the enticing story that enfolds. Would definitely recommend. ( )