16 May 2014

Book Talk: The WishKeeper by Maximilian Timm


Series: The Paragonia Chronicles #1
Publication date: November 12, 2013
Publisher: Lost King Entertainment
Genres: YA Fantasy
Format: Paperback
Source: Maximilian Timm (the author)
Pages: 356

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When a broken-winged, rebellious teenage fairy discovers that her family's WishMakers made an all-important True Love Wish, she secretly ventures to the human world in order to grant it despite the impossibility and to prove that she can be a WishKeeper. An adventure to prove her worth turns into a battle against dark forces determined to harness the wish's power, as well as the insecurities that arise within the little fairy herself. Shea Evenstar must overcome her doubts, fears and apprehensions, but even more so, the painful discovery of a hidden family secret. We, WishMakers, all have a WishKeeper assigned to us that protects and guides our wishes toward fulfillment. Teenage, broken-winged Shea is determined to become one. "The fate of your wishes rests on the back of a broken-winged fairy.

The WishKeeper was my first book with fairies ever and I really enjoyed it. There was love, friendship and a little twist in the form of a "coming-of-age" element. I loved getting to know Shea and see her evolve and turn into this girl who believes in herself instead of being sad and angry.

Some general information: In this book we stumble upon WishMakers and WishKeepers. We, and I mean us humans, are the WishMakers, we make the wishes and certain fairies have the job of "catching" those wishes - which means that they are the WishKeepers. Each Keeper is assigned to a Maker. 
We also have different kinds of wishes, we have Purity Wishes, Athletic Wishes, Money Wishes and Ladder Wishes - aside from those we have Death Wishes and True Love Wishes. 
The fairies also have a king, this king is called the WishingKing. This king is actually from our world and in this case called Eurebus - and he is evil. The world the fairies live in is called Paragonia, it's a place in the woods - but still out of our world. Paragonia is not the happy place it once was and I hope we see Paragonia thriving when this series is over.

Let's talk about Shea; she lost her wings because a true love wish was destroyed - and with that she also lost her mother. Shea and her father doesn't really talk to each other anymore because of her mother's death. She wants to be a WishKeeper but because of her broken wings she obviously can't fly into our world and collect the wishes and therefore she cannot be a WishKeeper. I absolutely love Shea Evenstar, she made me laugh, she made me get all emotional and she taught me various things. I think it took 50 pages before I was convinced I would absolutely love her and wished I knew someone like her in real life. 
All the things she goes through toughens her up and in the end Shea is a different person than the one she was after the death of her mother - the Shea we met in the end is a wonderful person and I think she's the sort of friend everyone should have.
I could relate to Shea in every possible way - about being alone, being different, that feeling of wanting to fit in but liking to stand out as well.

Thane! Thane is about the same age as Shea and Beren (Shea's father) has "assigned" him to keep an eye on Shea...I adore him, he is so kind and he really cares about Shea once he got to know her - I kept smiling every time he was in the picture. He is so thoughtful and when things started to go wrong he showed his true colours and we got to see this amazing person.

I loved the story! I loved getting to know Shea and the other characters, I loved learning about Paragonia and reading about the history of everything. You know that feeling you had when you first read Harry Potter and started to get obsessed with the world? That is the exact feeling I got when reading about Paragonia. Max has created a wonderful world and story that I want everyone to read and experience for themselves! 

One thing I absolutely love and adore Max for is adding another kind of relationship - we have the relationships between parents and children, between friends and between coworkers. Avery (a friend of Elanor (Shea's mother)
And then on the other hand he practically killed me with that ending! So.. be aware!

To summarize quickly: This story is magnificent, it almost brought tears to my eyes and sometimes I catched myself holding my breath. The characters are wonderful and some of them will stay with you forever. I don't think I need to tell you, but I gave this book 5 hearts because no less could be justified.


Max has also written a guest post about what it means being an indie author and he has also taken part in a Q&A this month!

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