Book Review: Of Heroes and Villains by Julius St. Clair

Title: Of Heroes and Villains

Author: Julius St. Clair

Series: Sage Saga #4

Genre: Romance, Young Adult, Fantasy

Published by: L&W Books

Published Date: May 13th, 2014

Pages: 251

Goodreads

The Age of Peace has arrived. For the first time in history, the Kingdoms are united, and Sages are being born.

But there is a new horror on the horizon.

An evil remnant from an ancient time threatens the stability, and those that survived the ordeal with Thorn now find themselves facing an enemy that is beyond their abilities.

Meanwhile, Bastion, a young Sage haunted by his childhood, finds a destructive power growing inside of him that desperately seeks a release. With the new problems facing Allay, he’s unsure if his teachers will be able to help him control it. And soon, he finds himself wondering if the darkness inside of him should be purged, or embraced..

"Of Heroes and Villains" is the next book in the Sage Saga series. Catherine has ruled peacefully, her kingdom started to grow. She talked to people and accepted their terms and problems. Prattlian and Langoran are now apart of Allay. This peace has lasted a long 5 years. The even have something called Orders. There are three orders, one for each kingdom, they are something like churches.

Everyone has thought that the Quietus were all wiped out, until some kids came to report that they think that find some. James, now Master Sage, took on the assignment to go look for them and bring them back to offer peace and give them a home. Catherine asked Arimus to go with him and he does. Meanwhile, a new comer Bastion is all mighty and powerful. He doesn't know how to control his powers like everyone else. He makes a couple of friends and an enemy before the day the new Sage Academy opens up. Bastion makes a great addition to what is to come about Allay, and he has the power to save the world. 

As James and Arimus arrive at the old kingdom of Prattle, the Quietus are quite aggressive. They said something about the Sages telling them that they need to join them for what is to come. James wants to know what their talking about so he asked a bunch of questions but still no useful information. They bring back the Quietus and they proved food and a little shelter. Until the leader of the Quietus brings about some interesting information. Knowing this information, Catherine takes it to Zain, the king of Langor and Tyuin, the king of Prattle and has James promote some of the students to Master Sages and tells him to go back to Prattle to find out who they are. When him and the seven students arrive things don't goes as they planned. Lakrymos, one of the sages of old and Orchid appear before James and his students. Kills most of his students and leaves 2 alive making him chose. It was a sick game. Lakrymos wants to take over Allay and turn them into a kingdom full of warriors so they can stopped the oncoming threat.

Towards the end Catherine gives the people a decision and they wanted Lakrymos to lead them because he was known for his valet efforts. Catherine steps down and they all plan to leave, but Lakrymos comes a little to early. He takes on their offer "if they can at least harm them then they are free to leave with whoever wants to come". They win but Bastion, who wanted to go has to stay. James does the unthinkable and goes back with Bastion's friends Kent and Daisy, to persuade him to their side and make sure he doesn't do anything he regrets.

 This book kinda made me mad. The order is made up of a bunch of greedy a-holes, who just want someone bigger and badder than Catherine for king. Especially the order master's son he was a big butt too. Like in the other books this did have a bunch or grammar errors and what not but still another book to the series.

Book Review: Hail to the Queen by Julius St. Clair

Title: Hail to the Queen

Author: Julius St. Clair

Series: Sage Saga #3

Genre: Romance, Young Adult, Fantasy

Published by: L&W Books

Published Date: November 17th, 2013

Pages: 264

Goodreads

The Sages have been scattered and the mission has been thrown to the wayside. Alone in a foreign land, James and Princess Catherine must fight for their survival against hostile and terrifying forces that rival the power of gods. And it is only a matter of time before the other four Kingdoms realize that they are next for extermination.

The King of Zen-echelon has arrived, and with him is a plot to bring a dark age so unimaginable, even the Sages' enemies begin to seek their assistance. Powerful beyond belief, it appears that no one can topple the King on their own, and it soon becomes apparent that it will take nothing less than a leader and a Queen, to unite them all against their common foe...

Only so many things could go wrong in a book, this one a lot of things go wrong. "Hail to the Queen" picks up right after the ending to "The Dark Kingdom". James and Catherine are still stuck in the manifestation and James is barely holding on. But he is trying to hard for Catherine. All the other Sages are all scattered about and worried about them. Ariums sends Scarlet and Kyran to go to Zen-echelon to get the last stone. Jester appears before the Quietus and wants to meet with Catherine. James finally meets his mother but it isn't even for long because now he has to sent out to find where Jester took Catherine. 

Thorn, who is the "king" of Zen-echelon is a smart-ass and very egotistic. He doesn't think anyone can kick his butt. But Scarlet tries anyway and she loses hardcore. Apparently Thorn made the ether that is in the sky and he is capturing souls so he can go up against the Maker himself. So he wants to lay waste to all the kingdoms in order for him to get his wish. Kryan gets to see Chloe and Scarlet gets to see her brother one last time before the decided what they really want to do. Kryan decides to "side" with Thorn and Scarlet is scared crap-less of him.

In order for everyone to beat Thorn, everyone has to come together and work together. It was hard in the beginning, the Sages save Prattlian and started to head toward Langoran to get them on their side as well. It was a difficult task for the Langoran to side with them but then Thorn attacked and they changed their mind. With no home for the Langoran or the Prattlain they all head to Allay and regroup there,..

James and Arimus are out and about and find something quite interesting that might help them win against Thorn.  While in the Sage Academy looking for this sort of information they run into Alexander and Dominic. Kicking butt and taking names James and Arimus defeat them without breaking a sweat. Thorn isn't powerful he just knows how to use the stone in a different matter than anyone else. James and Arimus figure it out and learn how to do it on their own.  With this new found information James becomes super OP (over-powered). He learns new tidbits and tricks tat could help him in the long run. 

With Thorn and the ether gone, peace is once restored to the kingdoms. Allay, Prattlian, and Langoran are now at peace with each other and alleys but will it stay that way? 

Book Review: The Dark Kingdom by Julius St. Clair

Title: The Dark Kingdom

Author: Julius St. Clair

Series: Sage Saga

Genre: Romance, Young Adult, Fantasy

Published by: L&W Books

Published Date: November 21st, 2013

Pages: 234

Goodreads

Their Kingdom has just been devastated.

But the mission must go on.

A Princess and her seven Sages, haunted by the past, set out to stop a mysterious and sinister enemy. And to succeed, they need the five stones of legend. But none of the Kingdoms are willing to give up their only source of power without a fight...

I read this book a while ago and didn't get to writing a review about it so now that I have time here is the review. 

"The Dark Kingdom", is the second book to the Sage Saga series. In "The Last of the Sages" you see James becoming a Sage and he is the happiest person on the planet. In this book it tells you about all the training him and Achan go through after becoming sages. 

James decides to take Catherine out into the village because she has never really been there before. So he wanted to give her a three day vacation into the village. Well they get all settled in and she falls asleep and everything goes down to hell. Alexander, the Prattlian, and Keel, the Langoran decide to attack the village. James, Catherine and the other sagas know that the Kingdom of Allay can not withstand other attack. The sagas go on the defense and save the village, while Catherine and Dominic head to the academy because Alexander and Keel were heading that way. They save the village and Catherine kicks ass and saves the academy but that only leads to them having to move there mission time up to the next day. So instead of waiting two more weeks to set out for their mission to retrieve the other stones they now have to leave the following day. 

They decided to go to Langoran first because it was closer. Everything is all hunky dory until the king decides that he wants to marry Catherine and then they could get the stone. Well Arimus wasn't going to have any of that so he sends Kryan on a dirty mission. Mean while James and Dominic are both trying to kill each other in the arena. Then everything goes to hell again, the enforcer comes on and the town riots because their king is dead...Run little piggy run. Anyway...then they head to Prattlian, and learn about Jester. But the king isn't going to let his stone go easily, he wants them to get the stone of Quietus first. They knew eventually they would have to head there but not so soon...People go hurt bad in Quietus and I cried because three out of the seven died....While James and Catherine are stuck in Quietus arena in a manifestation, Kryan is headed back to Prattlian to meet up with Scarlet and Arimus. 

In this book everything just goes to hell and I didn't like it one bit. Out of all the people to die there was one person I didn't want to die because he just got to telling Catherine everything about his past. I feel bad for James too because he was James's only best friend, everyone else in the group wants him dead. Other then everything going to hell and me crying I found tis book just like the first one a great read.  

Book Review: The Last Of The Sages by Julius St.Clair

The Last Of The Sages by Julius St.Clair
Series: Sage Saga Book #1
Published by L & W Books on October 26th 2012
Genre: Fantasy 
Pages: 229
Goodreads

In the kingdom of Allay, Sages are born. Powerful warriors with supernatural abilities that would rival the strength of whole armies. And there is an academy that trains such warriors, forging them out of young, ordinary students. Few survive, but if there is any hope for this now desolate kingdom, the tests must be given to all that enter its walls. One such student is James, a self-proclaimed slacker that has just been forced into the academy by his father. And if he plans to see another day, he will have to weather through four lessons in life: determination, maturity, trust, and love…

"The Last Of The Sages" was a very very interesting book. Another book I picked up and couldn't put down. In this book you are getting the best of both worlds, Knights and magic "bam" all in one book. Like it says in the synopsis, the kingdom of Allay is the kingdom where Sages are born. Sages are very powerful warriors or knights with crazy supernatural powers. The other kingdoms have their own powerful warriors that are born and raised over there. In the Academy they train people to become warriors of the sort and if they can't make it they are put in the infantry divisions.

James, the main character in the story is a slacker. He is lazy, sleeps in all day, skips school on occasions, and doesn't help his father out at all. Well right now he is 19 years old and his father has had enough and signs him up for the academy and James is scared out of his wit. He doesn't want to go so he plans on running away instead of going to the academy. But he doesn't have enough to run away so he has no choice but to go to the academy. Once there he meets Kyran, a general and the authority figure Arimis. After hearing the story of the Sages, James is set on being one, but in order to do that he has to past the Sage test, which is considerable hard.

James, is annoying in my opinion he ask way t many questions and it just slows the whole story down a lot. He doesn't know when to shut up. But he is very determined to become a Sage and help his friend Catherine out. No Catherine is a witty, outgoing, infantryman in the 5th class, she likes James and they become really close friends.

The ending, well the ending it ended funny but it didn't really mean anything at all. Don't get me wrong I like how Julius ended the book, James was going through a lot of stress and him and his friend Achan wanted to have fun and they did kicking each others butt. In a few months they will embark on a  journey that is both dangerous and could kill the last of the Sages, the only 8 they have.