Lyonesse Book 1: The Well Between the Worlds: Volume 1

Sam Llewellyn's LYONESSE: THE WELL BETWEEN THE WORLDS tells of a land before King Arthur, where a sword is plunged in a stone. The land of Lyonesse has become a place of danger, with its people living with the threat of monsters in the wells. Idris, rescued from certain death, finds his fate tied with his world's in this fine epic fantasy of a journey into dangers.

Indris' entire life had been a lie. He had grown up believing that he was a very average young man. It would seem that there was really nothing special about him. Everything in Indris' life would turn upside down in an instant. One moment, he was an average boy and the next he was being told he was going to be thrown down the well for fear he was a cross. Then, saved in just the nick of time, Indris is trained to fight monsters. Eventually, Indris will learn the truth of his heritage and the great destiny that is set for him. Lyonesse: The Well Between the Worlds is the first novel in the Chronicles of Lyonesse series. This first book is filled with action and a great story. I can't wait for the second book in the series.

Idris Limpet is just an ordinary boy, until a child's game gone bad earns him a death sentence in the court of the Captains. Idris is rescued from his imminent doom by the mysterious mage Ambrose, who takes him to the Wellvale to become trained as a monster-groom. But Ambrose has more than one motivation for bringing Idris to Wellvale. Lyonesse has become a place filled with poison and treachery. The land is sinking, slowly poisoned with the water continuously released from the bottomless Wells. It is Idris' destiny to save the land from destruction, but how can one twelve-year-old boy and his best friend Morgan save Lyonesse from the centuries of wickedness that have corrupted it? //Lyonesse: The Well Between the Worlds// is a retelling of the classic King Arthur legend, but in a way that you've never experienced it before. Idris' world is completely different from any traditional medieval setting, and the characters have been reinvented. The result is a book that is completely new and original, and yet still has faint echoes of a familiar story. The world of Lyonesse will haunt you long after the story is complete, and leave you eagerly awaiting a sequel. Reviewed by Alyssa Feller

It all begins when Idris falls from a plank and into the ocean. Several people see his fall, and he is saved from drowning. But in a world where swimming is forbidden, the fact that he emerges from the sea unharmed means he will be arrested, tried and executed as a monster. It is only the daring rescue by a stranger that saves Idris from this fate. He is delivered into another fate, stranger than the first. Idris is now linked to the fortunes and future of a country that is slowly sinking into dark and mystical depths. LYONESSE: THE WELL BETWEEN THE WORLDS is a radical re-imagining of Arthurian tales. Idris is the young Arthur, learning all the skills he will need to rule and perhaps save the country of Lyonesse from sinking beneath the waves. He is aided in this task by Ambrose, who is surely Merlin transformed into a mage of "star and stone" and also a lord of the land. Lyonesse is presented as a place ransacked by greed and poisoned by the wells from which it fishes its wealth. Idris is handpicked by Ambrose to train as a monstergroom. Monstergrooms care for the monsters that are fished from the wells that pockmark Lyonesse until they are burned as fuel. These combustible beings catch fire as soon as they hit the air. They burn "...hotter than trees... burn stone and make metal run like water." So they are kept in tanks by the monstergrooms and frequently doused with a fishy sludge until they are needed as fuel. Being a monstergroom is considered a good, if dangerous, profession. It is an honor to be chosen to train as one, though many die in the testing that is part of the apprenticeship. At first Idris is excited to be picked for this apprenticeship. But then he sees the horror of fishing for monsters. The hookmen wait for the tides to raise the water level in the wells. Then they throw offal into the wells, using bloody bladders as bait. When the monsters rise with the tide, they hook the monsters with long poles, pushing them down chutes and into iron tanks before they can catch fire. But worst of all, Idris can hear the monsters screaming. They plead for mercy and try to lure their captors into the watery depths. They prey on their masters by reading their minds and revealing their deepest, darkest secrets and desires. Idris discovers he is not the only one who can hear the monsters. All the monstergrooms have this gift to a certain degree, though the monsters seem to speak to Idris the loudest. After his hand is cut and he loses blood in one of the wells, the monsters tell him that he is now "known" in their watery world. Yet, despite his misgivings about becoming a monstergroom, he proceeds in his training, with extra instruction from Ambrose. It is Ambrose who reveals how the wells came into being. Ambrose illustrates the way the well-waters are poisoning the land and how the land is slowly sinking as they allow more monsters through their watery portals. He also tells Idris about how Lyonesse is held in thrall by an evil queen,

This is the story of a boy who was raised in a fishing town with a loving family. He was your average twelve-year-old who liked adventures and playing with friends after school. Little did he know that this current adventure had just begun. With a twist of events, this young boy was fighting for his life and finding out things about himself that put him and everyone that knew him in more danger than ever before. I greatly enjoyed this book. At times it lacked detail and became hard to follow, but overall it was a great book. It shows the real side of humans. Some are out to help people and others are there to only help themselves. It is a nice change to your classic 'monster' story or King Arthur tale. Many books have the same theme and you can predict what is going to happen way before it does. With THE WELL BETWEEN THE WORLDS, though, it is another story. The plot is different from anything I have ever read and I loved it. It was also unpredictable for the most part. There are times where I was sure that I knew what the main character was going to do but was surprisingly wrong and a new twist unfolded. I could not put the book down because I wanted to know what was going to happen next and what this young boy was going to do. I can't wait for the next book in the LYONESSE series to come out so I can discover where this young hero's journey veers off to next. Reviewed by: Shyanne