Leo and his brother are very unhappy in the brutal military academy that they attend, it would seem that Leo is destined to become a soldier something that he loathes. Things, however, take a very strange turn when he finds a black book, with seemingly blank pages, but as he examines the book another story of a far away country called England starts to appear...

The Eyes of a King is the first of a trilogy of books by debut author Catherine Banner and mixes mystery, magic and fantasy to create an interesting if flawed story.

The main problem with the book is its density, no one is ever going to accuse Banner of being short of ideas, and the problem is that there are far too many of them for a novel of this length. The story is spread across two world, but their connection takes so long to be established that I had lost interest at this point.

Characterisation is also a problem with the book. Most characters should have an internal logic and if they have Banner has failed to clearly transfer this information to the reader; Leo especially appears to react to situations in an almost random manner. The first hundred pages is where the author paints the protagonists background culture and their place in the world, but after the first hundred pages I didn't feel that I had enough information to place Leo in his world or care about his situation.

Some of these problems may arise from the fact that Banner started to write the book aged only fourteen, so a lot of the issues with the structure are those one would expect from a young author with limited life experience. Hopefully, as she has grown older, the next two books will give full range to her imagination, though I would suggest that she passes it through a good editor who can cut away some of the ideas to strengthen the plot.

5

Charles Packer