Book review: The Jasper forest by Julia Gray

I was very happy with “The Dark Moon”, the first book of the Guardian cycle from Julia Gray. And so it was with high expectations that I started the second one in this serie: “The Jasper Forest”…. and unfortunately in my opinion it fell flat.

The story left out where Dark Moon ended, with an exiled Terrel drifting on his raft towards the continent of Macul, nearly dead from dehydratation. The first part of the book relates the story of his rescue by the residents of a small village named Fenduca on the continent of Macul, and how they gradually overcame their distrust of him by using his much needed healing skills. Only one thing matter to Terrel however: to hold his promise to his beloved Alyssa to come back for her, and thus, Terrel is desperate to find a way to go back home in Valdanis. However his role in an ancient Prophecy is not over yet, and his ghost friends as well as his dreams of incoming destruction will make Terrrel reluctantly realize he has still a role to play on this continent before being able to come back home. Indeed, similar to what happened in Belancuria in Valdanis in the Dark Moon, there is apparently an elemental force in the royal city of Talazoria that threaten to destroy everything on the continent, and the aftershock would even send a wave of destruction on the ocean towards Valdanis. Terrel will then leave Fenduca and travel across the continent to Talazoria hoping to use his past experience of dealing with elementals to stop the incoming destruction.

Personally I think that the first part of the book was too long. There is not enough stuff going on around a small insignificant village like Fenduca to write 200 pages or so about it. In contrast, the Valley of Darkness was probably the best part of the book, and Terrel’s walk into the mist at night, trying to run away from the Valley, was gripping. Another problem is that the entire book is devoted to Terrel, and his strained relationship with Jax was not exploited very much. I would have liked parallel chapters with Jax’s or the seers’point of view of what is happening in Valdanis, just like it was with Dark Moon.

In conclusion, I liked reading this book, but not as much as I did the first one. My concern right now is that I know there are 3 more books in the serie, and I hope these are not fillers to reach the conclusion of the serie.