Daughters of the Storm: Blood and Gold, Book 1

Australian author Wilkins’s unsophisticated fantasy epic falls flat. In the generically European fantasy kingdom of Almissia, the king is in an enchanted sleep, and his five daughters set out together to find a magic user who may be able to wake him. The journey, too straightforward to be called a quest, is punctuated by predictable challenges that make the plot feel plodding and inevitable. The stereotypical characterization of the sisters, each of whom is selfish and unpleasant in her own way, forecast the attempted plot twists: the warrior thinks with her sword, the mystic has plot-convenient abilities, the flighty one and the strumpet cause political troubles with ill-advised affairs, and the religious zealot will betray anyone to serve her god. Readers hoping for an exciting female-led take on epic fantasy will instead find this book drearily familiar. Agent: Selwa Anthony, Selwa Anthony Author Management. (Mar.)