Review: Cutlass

Title: Cutlass
Author: Ashley Nixon
Series: Cutlass Trilogy
Genre: Fantasy
Release Date: November 13, 2014
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A Quick Introduction: When Barren kidnaps his brother's fiancee to ransom her for a duel, he quickly realises that he has bitten off more than he can chew. Not only is Larkin nothing like he expected, but they've both caught the attention of very powerful people. As they're pulled into a quest that involves both of their families and some startling surprises, they have to learn to let go of everything that they've believed to be true.

Out of Ten: 7/10

Review at a Glance: Despite a somewhat slow start and occasionally exasperating characters, this novel was an enjoyable read.

Review: I read this using the Kindle App for iPad, so there were lots of highlighting and annotations. Some of these were of frustration, but they got further and further between as the book carried on. It took a while, but I found myself pulled in as the action picked up.

When I started reading Cutlass I had a moment of horror, where I thought that I was going to have only Barren's point of view to read, because he quite bothered, again at the beginning. I was relieved when I finally got to spend a couple minutes from Larkin's point of view. While I didn't really love either of them, I definitely liked that they both went through development as people, and I certainly liked both of them more in the end than I did at the beginning.

The world building left something to be desired. I wasn't impressed with the naming of either the places or the characters (seriously, some of those names), and I didn't really have a clear view of the world. I have intense personal preferences on how Elves are done, and this portrayal was hit-and-miss for me. I wasn't a huge fan of how the piracy was done.

It took me are really long time to get into this book, and I only really got interested once it picked up for me, which was more than halfway through. Once the plot picked up, I didn't put it down until the end. I wish I had been more engaged at the beginning, but the start lagged.

Overall, I still enjoyed this novel despite some pacing problems and exasperating characters, and it is possible that I'll pick up the sequels.