Blog Tour: The Lorekeepers Book One: Raine in the Underlands by E.M. Greville

Title: The Lorekeepers Book One: Raine in the Underlands

Author: E.M. Greville

Genre: Fantasy

Publisher: Shawline Publishing Group

Published: 25^th July 2023

Format: Paperback

Pages: 202

Price: $19.95

Synopsis: FAMILIES CAN BE TRICKY…

Especially when your dad is missing, your mum is hiding a BIG secret and a strange
woman – who looks oddly familiar – is trying to steal your magic from you, which you don’t even know you have because no one EVER tells you ANYTHING…!

When Raine spontaneously shoots a blue flame from her finger and breaks a window, even she can’t deny the magic running through her. Being banished to the basement and finding a cursed baby dragon means life is about to change.

Forever.

But Raine’s powers serve a prophecy and dark forces are gathering…

With her unreliable magical encyclopedia and a group of weird and wonderful allies,
can she find out what happened to her father, fulfil her destiny, and still save the world?

How hard can all that be?

~*~

Raine is living in Scutter’s Alley with her mum, Elsie and her abusive stepfather, Bruiser, when she is whisked away after blue flame breaks a window in the basement. She’s taken to the Underlands, where she meets a wizard, a dragon called Little Thirty-Five, and a familiar called Monkey, who was once a toy. Once in the company of Flo, Little Thirty-Five’s mother, Raine learns that she is a lost princess, and it is her destiny to defeat the dark forces. As Raine travels through the new land, learning about her identity and the prophecy, she journeys across a new land with a gang of weird and wonderful friends, preparing to face her destiny, and learn about her powers – she’s half-royal and half-witch, and a woman who looks familiar is chasing after her – and Raine needs to defeat her – easy, peasy right?

The first Lorekeepers book, Raine in the Underlands starts the journey off, and takes us into a world where fairy tales come to life and are true – which Raine can’t quite believe at first. As the story unfolds and Raine learns more about the world and her destiny and heritage, things become clearer for the reader as well. We are discovering the world along with Raine, which worked well for this book, whilst also leaving things a bit open in some places for the subsequent books. – there are at least two more planned, so we should get a nice resolution that works for a middle grade fantasy trilogy. As the story goes on, I hope to find out more about Raine and her family and who is behind everything dark in their world. The hints of darkness are threaded throughout the book. We know there is a threat coming, and possibly a big battle between this threat and Raine that could lead into the next book. The best part of this is unravelling the mystery and going on a journey with Raine to find out who she has to face and why – the truth about what happened with her family all those years ago when her father disappeared. Missing or dead parents are common in books like this – often disposed of so the child characters can pop off on their adventures without mum or dad worrying too much. The execution of the absent parents in this book worked well, and I am looking forward to seeing if we get to see more of Elsie, Raine’s mum, in future books.

Raine in the Underlands is the kind of story I loved as a kid and still do. Portal fantasies are always popular, and for me it is how the author creates the portal that makes things interesting, because what they use and how they use it is more important than the fact that the trope is used. Books are portals into other worlds anyway. I loved that Raine was able to fall through, and the range of emotions she felt throughout the book as she made discoveries, all of which seemed to happen rather quickly, and the complications that arose throughout served to drive the story forth so Raine could get to the end of this journey and move into things that will hopefully prepare her for the next one as the book’s ending hints at more to come. Raine makes key connections in this book with dragons and wizards that I hope will become important in the next book, as I loved Little Thirty-Five and want to see more of him and his family. Raine was a great character, who started out shy but the grew into what she needed to be – curious and brave, and willing to take a chance, because she wanted to help her family and get away from Bruiser.

I enjoyed this book – it had everything and took what we know about fantasy, magic, fairies and fairytales and played with it all in a way that suits the story and characters, creating something new but familiar at the same time. I think it will appeal to middle grade readers and up as a light fantasy that is engaging and fun. Anything with dragons can work well, and cursed dragons are lots of fun too – poor Little Thirty-Five! I wanted to help him, and I hope Raine can in subsequent books. A great start to the series and hopefully more to come soon. Whilst aimed at a younger audience, I think older readers will also enjoy this book and get something out of it.