Adam Gowans is the youngest of five Air Force brats, out of which his siblings have voted him the weirdest. He loves anything that deals with stories, including movies, novels, television dramas, music, video games, manga/manhwa, and webtoons.
In his mid-twenties, he lived and taught English in South Korea for four years before returning to the States to live, like many LDS authors, in Utah.
His first novel is On Angelic Wings, which has a planned sequel, but the sequel will be released after two other novels that are calling for his attention.
Ever since magic caused his mother's death, Ha-Neul, crown prince of Balhae, hates witches and the magic they wield. He has instituted harsh laws against all magic users.
Lisa is a young witch working undercover as a servant in his palace, hoping to gain freedom for her people. The last thing the two expect is to fall in love. But when Ha-Neul learns that Lisa is not only a witch, but the daughter of the Prince of Vires, land of witches, he banishes her. Distracted by heartbreak, he is caught off-guard by a military coup.
In hiding and on the run, Ha-Neul swallows his pride and travels with his siblings to Vires, planning to beg Lisa's aid, only to learn that she has mysteriously vanished.
Now his only hope in reclaiming his kingdom and reuniting with Lisa lies in the remote Northern Mountains, a country no one has ever penetrated and rumored home of a powerful magic source. There, Ha-Neul learns that a being powerful beyond comprehension has been carefully guiding his destiny. But if Ha-Neul can't let go of his hatred of all things magic, and accept the new path offered to him, it will mean the destruction of his entire world.
Raven's Eye is an interesting mix of Sci-Fi and Fantasy about two lovers separated by beliefs and social status. Ha-Neul is the prince, essentially, of the kingdom of Balhea, but he has a hatred for witches stemming from a childhood tragedy. The girl he loves, Lisa, is the daughter of the current ruler of Vires, and is also a witch. When he finds out, after courting her favor, he banishes her. Not soon after, one of the more prestigious military commanders of a division of his armies stages a coup and he and his family have to run for their lives.
The plot thickens when he learns more about his own past than he cares for, leading to some interesting plot twists as he tries to find his estranged love by following her to Vires, only to learn that she's disappeared. After getting the idea to try and take back his kingdom, and to find Lisa, Ha-Neul and his family head to the Northern Mountains, a place of mystery. There, they learn there's a lot more going on than they supposed and it just goes on from there.
This story has a lot of potential. The first half of the book, or at least the first third all came from Lisa's point of view and how she hated the prince, until she's encouraged to get to know him, and then she comes to love him. The perspective changes when we see Ha-Neul try to court her, which is successful, until he realizes she's a witch, then he kicks her to the curb like any spoiled brat might, though there's more to it than that.
And then the rest of it is us following along as he tries to figure out how to take back his kingdom, gain the trust of the people he's persecuted most of his life, and generally get his life back together in time to go to war against the usurpers, which is where this book ends.
Apparently there will be a sequel to finish this all out, which would have been nice to know, because all I really wanted was to see if he and Lisa could put their differences aside and get back together. Unfortunately, there are conditions attached to that which require him to basically take back his kingdom to maintain balance in a grand scheme we don't really know much about.
There are a lot of different foreign names, titles, and terms in this book. It's great that the author provided a glossary of sorts for all these terms, but when reading it became confusing because some of those terms are really similar to each other, and there are apparently at least three or four different languages everyone keeps switching between, though I can only guess that it's because each is a dialect used only in certain social circles. But even with that glossary, there were a lot of terms where I was just like "screw it, I'm just going to pretend I know what it's saying and go with it," because there are so many of them, and it was easier than referencing the glossary every time I came across a term I wasn't sure about.
The story was intriguing, but I don't know that I will pick up the sequel when it comes out, mainly because I felt robbed not knowing this was the start of a series to begin with. I give this four out of five stars.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an ARC of this book.
10 Fun Facts
1. I love chocolate. I always have a stash of Lindor Truffles and Reese’s, my favorite Reese’s being the large Easter’ eggs and Christmas trees. I also eat chocolate every day, sometimes with all three meals.2. I only buy the physical copies of books that I really like. All my other copies are digital. I started doing this after I moved to South Korea and had very limited living space.
3. I spent a few hundred dollars collecting all of the single volumes of the manga Skip Beat! while I lived in South Korea. I still buy the new volumes as they come out and read each new chapter online every month.
4. I like to cook, but I prefer cooking when it’s for more people than just me; otherwise, I cook simple meals.
5. My favorite video game series is Kingdom Hearts. I own multiple copies off the main games. However, my favorite standalone (which is standalone for now) is Horizon Zero Dawn.
6. I own four of the Harry Potter books with the original British covers (1, 3, 5, and 6) because I was given them while I lived in South Korea, but sadly can’t afford to try to buy the others.
7. Weird fact: I have seven moles on my right arm that form a dipper.
8. I was a bad student in university. I hardly ever did the reading assigned for my English classes. I always preferred to read a novel of my own choosing. Then I skimmed whatever reading was appropriate for the essays I wrote for class.
9. Though my two novels are Sci Fi/Fantasy, I very rarely read that genre anymore.
10. I’ll hold conversations with myself as different characters. It helps me hear their voice better and get to know them more.
