When Chris’s friend sends him an odd link to a website at Christmas, he expects it to help him pass the time until July, not draw him into a world of adventure.

The plot is gripping, the writing good. Beautifully punctuated, well edited, and delightfully quirky, this story appears to be written for a younger audience. The Amazon reviews bear this out with high ratings among readers aged ten and under, and I can see why.

The cover? Well, I’m reviewing it because it caught my eye in a black and white thumbnail, so I have no complaints. It is a simple image of a hand holding a wand and light coming out. The text is white, and a smaller description at the bottom informs us that this is The Distania Chronicles Book One.

The formatting and layout are spot on, and I found myself quickly immersed in the book. One thing that did throw me was an odd quirk about the speech: it rarely uses contractions. Everyone says “I am” or That is” instead of “I’m” or “That’s”. This may be done deliberately for the young age group, and you get used to it after a page or two.

It gets a 4 – and I am actually looking up Book Two despite not being the target audience…If you have a child in the family who likes fantasy this might be the book for them.