The White Tower by Michael Wisehart – Review

Published: November 1, 2016

Publisher: Amazon Digital Services

Series: The Aldoran Chronicles #1

Genre: Fantasy

Pages: 645 (Kindle)

My Rating: 3.0/5.0

Synopsis:

Magic is outlawed.

Those caught wielding it are taken to the White Tower. They are never heard from again.

After the chaos of the great Wizard Wars nearly a thousand years ago, the people turned their backs on magic. It was deemed evil. Those born with it will stop at nothing to remain hidden.

In the north, a young boy is hunted by the Black Watch. Desperate to survive, he turns to the one thing he fears most. Magic. A young girl’s affection for him forces her to pick up the sword. Her life may never be the same. In the east, a tortured prisoner vows to escape the White Tower. His sister’s life depends on it. And in the west, a captain fights to protect his king while shielding the woman he loves from the king’s son.

The world balances on the edge of a blade.

Can a handful of wielders manage to change it?

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I knew next to nothing about The White Tower when I decided that it would be my next audiobook selection, but that’s okay because Audible usually has solid recommendations. I had pretty high hopes for it since Tim Gerard Reynolds was narrating and the synopsis sounded interesting enough. This ended up with me having mixed feelings towards the book.

It was kind of a traditional fantasy plot – mages are said to be evil and are found, taken, and tortured in the White Tower. Of course the main character (one of them anyway) has magical powers and he’s Super Special and these inquisition-like people are after him specifically. He lives outside a smaller city, has no idea who/what he really is, and discovers his magical powers and decides to try and keep them from his family. Like I said, it’s fairly standard fantasy for this POV. There are a few other POVs, including that of a mage being tortured in the White Tower. Now, I spent a decent portion of the book wondering why we spent so much time with this poor sap that was being repeatedly tortured. Surely he couldn’t have much to do with the plot, right? Wrong! Or at least sort of wrong. It takes forever for his connection and importance to become apparent and I mostly wished his chapters would just end. The other main POV is Ayrion, captain of the king’s guard and practically his second son. He ended up being one of my favorite characters, mostly because he actually got to participate in some action.

The White Tower is a good book, but suffers from pacing issues. There were long spans of this book where I just wanted to skip forward until something, anything happened. Fortunately, when things did happen it was absolutely gripping. There were several very satisfying battle scenes, close brushes with the Tower, and a few blossoming romances though it took me until the latter portion of the book to really become engaged in the plot. I’m still undecided as to whether or not I will continue on with the series.