Annabeth's War - Review

Annabeth's War
By: Jessica Greyson
Rating: 3.5 stars
Ages: 12 and up (best for girls)

With King Harold away at war, Lord Raburn has his eye on the throne. Those who dare to stand in his way fall beneath his power. All but one. A girl named Annabeth. Can a common, ordinary girl, with love for king, country, and her father, achieve the impossible?

Trained by her father, a master swordsman, outlawed Annabeth has only her sword, her wits, and her disguises to keep Belterra from falling entirely into Lord Raburn's clutches. Can she rescue her captured father and Prince Alfred? Will one girl keep the kingdom from falling?

Annabeth's War is my first book from Jessica Greyson, and I enjoyed reading it. Where did she get the fun idea for this book!? It was exciting, adventurous, and the type of book that makes you smile softly to yourself.

Annabeth was honestly the perfect heroine for this. She's actually one of the best heroines I've read a book about - and, let me tell you, it's very hard to impress me with a female character. Why? Because so many are written as wimpy little things who cannot fight for themselves - damsels in distress here, people ;) (this is pertaining to books set in such times as the Medieval and Victorian eras). But Annabeth was certainly not wimpy or delicate! She was extremely brave and tough, yet feminine and ladylike. Her wounds from the past and her desperate attempt to be strong in the face of all opposition kind of endears her to you.

I also want to say that Annabeth's War reminded me of Robin Hood, and I really liked that it was set in the Medieval era! It would not of been as good as it was had it been set in another time - the Medieval era was perfect for the story!

I have to applaud Miss Greyson for creating the fun characters in Annabeth's War! Not just Annabeth, but Ransom, Prince Alfred, Lady Christina, Song Lark, and others. Ransom played the role of hero nicely. I really enjoyed the parts when he was chasing Annabeth down and helping her (against her will). Prince Alfred was the 'big brotherly' friend who's very protective of Annabeth, and, because of that, you end up liking him even more. Although, I think I would've liked a bit more description on what the characters looked like - Song Lark was not described at all, and I don't really think Ransom or Alf or Christina were either. :/ It does give a lot of room for imagination and getting to have your own take on what they look like, but I would've liked a bit more - hair color, eye color, etc. :)

It was nice to be able to see where the romance was heading - for four of the characters. I could kind of see it coming with Alf and a particular lady, and then Ransom and Annabeth. At first, I was thinking that Annabeth and Alfred were together - but they weren't. :) And that's probably the funniest part of the book! Before I read the book I had the idea that there was very little romance in it, and only some at the end - but that wasn't exactly true! ;)

There were a few things that detracted from my enjoyment of the book (hence the 3.5 stars):

        One would be the formatting - it was a bit confusing. I thought that it would be changing from one time to another or something of the like when there was a gap between paragraphs, but I caught on. There were some grammatical errors.
        I thought that the romance in the book was good, but Ransom held Annabeth so many times it was slightly uncomfortable.
       And I didn't like the fact that Lord Raburn told Ransom he could 'have Annabeth' and that little scenario.

Other than that it was a pretty good debut novel, though!

This book was adventurous, fun, romantic, exciting, and fascinating. I really liked the plot! It was very, very unique. This whole book is unique! If you enjoy adventurous books centered around strong heroines, I think you'll enjoy this! :)