Tower of Parlen Min (The Narrow Escapes of Ves Asirin, #1)By Matt Xell
Published by Matt Xell
Source: Author's review request
Format: PDF
345 pages
"Ves Asirin wins a trip to the Tower of Parlen Min. There, with 19 other children, he competes in the Sword Challenge; a series of puzzles and tasks, for $12 million. As fantastic and glorious as the tower seems to be, Ves finds that it keeps a dark and secret history that he has been connected to for over 150 years, a secret that will define his destiny ... if he can escape 'The shadow'." - Goodreads
In the beginning and further into the book we are introduced to lots and lots of characters. Some people may find that hard to follow but for me I found that as time went by I started realizing and connecting with a the main people. The center character that the whole story revolves around it Ves Asirin. He is quite the unique boy! He is an orphan and has a memory loss disease, after 12-15 hours he forgets everything. If he has pictures or sketches of certain events, memories come back to him. But he handles this quite well and has learned to keep his sketchbook close (as it cotains all his memories). I found he grew as a character from beginning to end. His feelings, actions, and demeanor took the turn for the better. I really liked him, though I would say he did have a short temper at some points! The other characters grow on you too and even though the were a lot, I think the story needed every single one of them.
There is a lot of ideas in this book. The auther had some great events going on but at some points it seemed like a little too much, although again, I think for the story to develop like it did, it needed basically everthing. There was always something that kept you reading. Now, the summary does 'sum' up the book but it can be misleading in a way. I wasn't expecting the story I got! I thought the Sword Challenge would be the center focus but it was not. I really enjoyed the challenges or riddles and puzzles... they were very well thought out and I had so much fun trying to figure it out! But this is quite the gloomy and dark book. It is not a happy go lucky one by any means! "The Shadow" as mentioned in the summary is a very dangerous thing and it's hard to describe without spoilers. So I will jsut say there is death and fore-warning to readers - don't read it at night like I did! Expect the unexpected! The writing is quite simplitic and there are a lot of explanations but it works well to describe the scenarios.
You can try this book, I think as debut novel it was ok. I dove into it not knowing what it was really about and it took me out of my comfort zone. I would just say to read more reviews before deciding. And thank you Matt again!
Excerpt:
“A cryptogram …” she gasped.
“A what?” Ves asked.“A cryptogram - it’s a cryptogram!” Vikey repeated.
“Are you sure?” Jerod asked.
“Yeah, I think so,” Vikey said. “But if I’m right, then we need a code word in order to decipher the message.”
“Maybe it’s Angilis. Let’s try that.”
Vikey thought for a second … then she counted all the words on the note.
“No, it’s not Angilis,” she said.
“Look,” Ves said, pointing at the figurine. “There’s a word on the back of the figurine. Maybe that’s it.”
“Here, let me see,” Jerod said.
Ves handed the figurine to him and he read the word on its back.
“‘Lkl’?” he said. “That doesn’t sound like any word I know.”
“Yeah, me either,” Vikey said, taking the figurine from Jerod and examining the word on its back as well.
“Besides, the code word has to be about eighteen letters long.”
Vikey gasped again.
“What is it?” Ves asked her.
“‘Lkl’ isn’t a word!”
“I think we’ve already established that,” Jerod said.
“No. What I’m trying to say is that its not ‘Lkl’ but
L – K – L… not a word, but an acronym.”
“An acronym? For what?”“Lost – Kingdom – Legends!”
