The Last Feather - Shameez Patel Papathanasiou

Author: Shameez Patel Papathanasiou

Genre: Alternate Realm Fantasy

Rating: 3.5 stars.

In a Nutshell: Alternate realm fantasy with some hits and misses. Interesting characters, decent world building, a lot of action in the second half. First of a planned trilogy.

Story Synopsis:

Cassia’s younger sister Calla is dying but doctors have no clue about what’s ailing her. This is the latest in a long run of tragedies, including the death of their dad and the sudden disappearance of Cassia’s best friend Luke four years ago. Luke still keeps appearing in her dreams but what she doesn’t know then is that Luke is alive, and is trying to contact her from another realm. Soon, Cassia finds herself in this strange ‘Selene Realm’, with Luke and his new friends who call themselves “Reborns”. They have varied magical abilities but are under the rule of the original beings of the realm, the cruel “Firsts”. Cassia finds herself dealing with the difficulties and dangers of her new world, which involves a threat to the very existence of the Reborns through the monstrous Rahlogs. At the same time, she wants to get back home as soon as she can so that she can save Calla. How will she manage all this with the limited time she has in the Selene Realm?

Where the book worked for me:

😍 The book goes ahead at a fairly steady pace, medium towards the start and faster as it progresses.

😍 I liked the concept of the beings in the alternate realm. The Firsts, the Reborns and the Rahlogs are distinct, and yet not so distinct when you get to know them.

😍 I LOVED the fact that there is no clichéd romantic angle between the main characters. I am so fed up of shoehorned romance in fiction.

😍 Cassie is not an easy character to like. If this were a first person narration, I would have disliked the book for sure as she seems too full of herself. But keeping a distance from her is easier with the third person narration. The other characters are better, not necessarily good or bad but morally grey, which adds to the complexities of knowing them.

Where the book left me with mixed feelings:

😑 The world building was decent. But the detailing was somewhat hazy. I loved the villages, the various beings (as I mentioned above), the Baskian wolves, the magical abilities… But I felt like I didn’t get to know the place at all. It seems like it could have been any old village in Europe, albeit one with plenty of bananas!

😑 There are a few unforeseen twists that add to the fun. However, some of the twists are spoiled by foreshadowing.

😑 The ending isn’t exactly a cliffhanger ending, though it completes just one arc of the story and sets up the stage for the next part of the series. To this extent, it did well. But there is no closure to what happened a chapter before. Again, no spoilers, but things are at a very dangerous point, and in the next chapter, we hear from the said character something as vague as “All is well. Everyone is fine. It ended well.” But what happened? How did it get sorted out? Am I supposed to wait till the next book to know that?

😑 Some of the characters’ abilities are mentioned again and again but they aren’t used consistently. Cassie is supposed to have an eidetic memory yet she uses a highlighter on her medical textbooks to remember what’s important. Lochlan can teleport but doesn’t do so a crucial moments when it is really needed. The characters supposedly need a recharge time after excessive use of their magical abilities but just when their “downtime” starts varies as per the scene. Sometimes, it is after just one magical action, sometimes after multiple. I wish the plot sketching had been more precise.

😑 The basic writing itself is, at times, inconsistent. Here we have a book with characters openly talking of having sex (though there are no sex scenes). And at the same time, we have lines like “She threw him a vulgar gesture”? (And this comes twice in the book!) If the target audience is adults and not the YA segment, this periphrasis doesn’t make sense.

😑 The titular ‘feather’ is relevant to the plot in two ways, thus making it an interesting choice. But I don’t think it represents the story well.

Where the book could have worked better for me:

😒 Misleading marketing. I picked up this book on the assumption that it was a standalone. If I pick up a book that’s part of a series, I like to know about it in advance. The blurbs on NetGalley/Goodreads/Amazon don’t mention that this is the first of a planned trilogy. The only place where this is revealed is on the cover. Just see if you can locate that line on the teeny cover pic. Furthermore, the blurb on all three sites highlights the fact that this is a debut work. I always cut some slack for debut authors. But it turns out that this author already has a published book named “An Acquired Taste” to her name.

😒 As there are more books in this series, I don’t know if some of these below points will be tackled in future. But there are many lacunae in the plotting. Without going into spoilers, certain things are mentioned and then swept aside, as if they weren’t relevant at all. (Example: the portal that opened to another realm – what was its significance and who did it?) Some characters behave in a very biased way towards certain other characters, but there’s no rationale provided for their behaviour. (Example: Ro’s behaviour towards Lochlan – why was she so antagonistic with him?)

😒 Trivial point this, but the character names of Cassia’s family sounded very odd to me. Cassia and Calla are both names of Greek origin, their father is named “Deo”, which has Hindu roots, and their surname is “Khan”, which is a common Muslim last name. Their racial identity is not mentioned at all, nor is any of these cultures (Greek/Hindu/Muslim) relevant to or used in the story. Were they “Khan” just to provide a token PoC representation to the story?

Overall, a nice story with the good vs. evil trope, but with the lines blurred between the two. Somehow, the writing has a YA feel to it though it isn’t a YA book. Still, not bad, and I am sure the flaws will sort themselves with more writing experience. I might just pick up the rest of the series.

3.5 stars.

My thanks to Flame Tree Press and NetGalley for the DRC of “The Last Feather”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.

Main triggers: Brutal animal cruelty, cannibalism, behind-the-scenes gore and death.

On an aside: This hasn’t impacted my rating. But the author has two cats named “Turbo” and “Charger”. This has got to be the cutest author-related fact I have ever heard!