A disclaimer before I review this book, I despise YA novels with a passion but this book was written by a good friend's wife and I was asked to read it so I did. I also don't review books too often other them a star rating as I feel I really don't have the talent to do a review properly, but I was asked to so I will.

I liked the premise behind the book, multiple planes of existence, magic, and the arcane. I haven't seen many books dealing with Genies and magic so I was interested to see the author's take on the subject. I felt the subject was somewhat refreshing from the usual fair of elves, dwarves, and dragons; although they were mentioned in the book but with an interesting twist. I feel like there is some good idea there and if they were fleshed out more, if the author spent more time on world building of her stories, it could be a compelling series.

And now for the bad.

I felt the pacing of the book was too quick, it required the reader to ignore large leaps forward in the plot. The protagonist Amanda changes her personality in leaps and bounds seemingly out of nowhere, I believe it would of been more engaging to the reader if the writer had take her time with the development of Amanda's character over a longer period of time. I did state at the top of this review that I hate YA novels and maybe this is pro forma to not flesh out story arcs or to delved deeper into character building. This book was a quick read and like I said moved fast, perhaps too fast. I will say this book didn't resonate with me personally but I am not the target audience. I wouldn't argue against anyone reading this book as it has some interesting ideas on genies and magic. Getting people to read anything today is a feat in and of itself.

Enjoyed the book and will continue on to book 2. The only reason I marked it down a few stars is because the writing jumped abruptly in places to where I actually had to go back and re-read a page to make sure I didn’t miss something or to see if a page was missing. It was jarring enough in some spots to take me out of the story.

I was lucky enough to get a free copy of this book from the author through twitter. (Book reads).
This for me was a great read as it was a good pace and the whole story captivated me from beginning to end. Very well written and the character of Amanda is believable, as we also set on a journey to find the magic and to protect the relic. I could see this also become darker as some chapters my imagination took a darker feel for the story.
Great story for young adults. A nice dark fantasy. Could also see this go further.