Advent by James Treadwell

Advent by James Treadwell
Advent #1
Release Date: February 2, 2012
Publisher: Hodder
Rating: Bland

1537. A man hurries through city streets in a gathering snowstorm, clutching a box in one hand. He is Johann Faust, the greatest magician of his age. The box he carries contains a mirror safeguarding a portion of his soul and a small ring containing all the magic in the world. Together, they comprise something unimaginably dangerous.

London, the present day. Fifteen-year-old Gavin Stokes is boarding a train to the countryside to live with his aunt. His school and his parents can’t cope with him and the things he sees, things they tell him don’t really exist. At Pendurra, Gavin finds people who are like him, who see things too. They all make the same strange claim: magic exists, it’s leaking back into our world, and it’s bringing something terrible with it.

First in an astonishingly imaginative fantasy trilogy, Advent describes how magic was lost to humanity, and how a fifteen-year-old boy discovers that its return is his inheritance. It begins in a world recognizably our own, and ends an extraordinarily long way from where it started—somewhere much bigger, stranger, and richer. - Goodreads

The beginning of Advent was very intriguing, as the author mixes flashback chapters with the present day, and it was enough to keep me reading steadily for the first fifty to seventy pages. The flashbacks were very enjoyable, and while I didn't enjoy the present day stuff as much, I was still looking forward to finding out more about the book.

After the first one hundred pages or so, I feel that the pacing began to slow down and I started to lose interest very quickly. Because I received this book for review, I kept going with it but if I had purchased it then I probably would have given up about 200 pages in.

I wasn't able to connect with any of the characters, even the main protagonist. None of them really stood out to me, so I wasn't able to invest in their storylines.

On the plus side, I really enjoyed James Treadwell's writing style. The book was beautifully written with lots of descriptions, which I love. It's a shame that I didn't enjoy the plot, because I would definitely have ended up really liking it if the pacing was better. Who needs to connect to the main characters, right?

So I won't be reading the rest of this trilogy, but I would definitely be willing to give James Treadwell's other future works a try one day.