by: Robert William Gronewald

genre: fantasy

         I’m not normally one to be convinced to read a book by its cover alone, but the Crystal Key’s artwork really got to me. Upon reading the synopsis, I learned that the story features a young, female protagonist who wields combat magic, and I am all about that. The Crystal Key tells the story of a seemingly regular girl, Felicity, living in a magical world when she is contacted on her birthday and recruited to an order aimed at protecting the portals of their world from beasts that live in The Dark. A little into her training, Felicity finds herself stranded alone in Dark Territory and it becomes her mission to find her way back home. 

If you’ve skipped to the bottom and seen the four-star rating, you will have probably guessed (correctly) that there were a lot of things I like about this book. I really did enjoy this book overall and I would probably read the sequels but there are some things that I found problematic. 

For one, I felt like I spent the first 40 or so pages trying to figure out what the heck a ‘wellspring’ was, how ‘mirrorways’ related to it, and that ‘constructs’ are animal-mechanical modes of transportation. These are all really interesting elements of the world-building featured in The Crystal Key but new concepts like these should be explained as they are being introduced. Obviously, it makes sense for the reader to be a little discombobulated when you are initiated into a magical world with so many new ideas, but a little exposition goes a long way. I'm still not entirely sure what a wellspring looks like other than something that casts eternal light but I guess to enjoy the rest of the story, that's all you really need.

I am also not a super big fan of this type of world-building and I thought it was a little bit cut-and-paste; a snip of steampunk with the magic keys and vehicular beasts, a little bit of urban fantasy with the magical world politics and portalling. Mutated creatures in the Dark are also reminiscent of an apocalyptic Toy Story and while there is nothing wrong with making a hybrid of fantasy styles in one series, it's not really my thing. The villains in The Dark sort of botched the climax for me and I waited patiently for the characters to resolve their issue. 

What I really enjoy about this story is that all of the characters are well-developed and there are bits and pieces of dialogue that intimate thought-out backstories which I hope are revealed in the later books. There are also no characters that I feel like I can't relate to on some level, no one too evil or far-gone that I'm glad when they are no longer in the narrative. The protagonist, while also The Everygirl, still manages to have a personality and be an active decision-maker in her story (compared to some female heroines that simply have things happen to them). 

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel and was glad to see that this is part of an upcoming trilogy. I will be waiting patiently for the next instalments. Thank you to the publisher for letting me read this book in exchange for an honest review.

4/5 stars