The Thorn of Dentonhill (Maradaine #1) ★★☆☆☆

~ Bookstooge

thornofdentonhill (Custom)This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress, Blogspot & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission
Title: The Thorn of Dentonhill
Series: Maradaine #1
Author: Marshall Maresca
Rating: 2 of 5 Stars
Genre: YA/Fantasy
Pages: 400
Format: Digital Edition

 

Synopsis:

Veranix Calbert is the son of a former gang leader. His father fled the city but when it was discovered that “Veranix” had magical talent, the family returned for just a couple of days to drop the boy off at an academy under his now assumed name. Another gang leader, Willem Fenmere, used those days to kill the father and brain burn the mother with an illegal drug.

Now a young mage, Veranix spends his nights taking out two bit hoods who sell the drug and giving any of their money to local charities. By day he has to be a student full time. In the process of spoiling what he thinks is a huge drug deal, Veranix comes into possession of a magical cape and rope. Using these items, his war against Fenmere escalates, to the point where Fenmere hires professional assassins to kill The Thorn.

It leads to his professor and a young woman who has been helping him all along being kidnapped by some mages who hired Fenmere to import the cape and rope. With the help of his friend and a cousin in a gang and some just plain dumb luck, Veranix rescues everybody, keeps his identity a secret and prevents one of the bad mages from gaining some super serious magic stuff.

Then its back to school and business as usual.

 

My Thoughts:

I went into this book, and series, with a really bad attitude towards the author. He’s currently writing 3!!!!! Maradaine related series, which wasn’t real bad, but I’d prefer he writes one series then the next. But what crossed the line was when he intersected two of the series, making it imperative to have read book 1 and 2 of one series and book 1 or 2 of the second series to understand the 3rd book in series one. That pissed me off. So that was my starting point.

I had heard lots of good things though, so I figured I needed to give this guy a chance.

Right off the bat, it’s Young Adult. Then the main character Veranix acts like every stupid teenage male you could imagine. He’s going after dealers and stealing their take each week? While completely ignoring going after Fenmere? Then, from a student perspective, he’s talented, very talented and coasts on that and is one lazy son of a gun instead of working hard. Then when he does go out at night, he does NO planning, no tactics, no strategies, just shoot, hit and run and kind of counts on his natural abilities and acrobat training to get him through. He’s a phracking idiot is what he is.

There were 4 distinct places where I almost DNF’d this. I hate stupid characters and Veranix was deliberately written as an angry, rash, stupid young man. Everybody else covers for him and instead of growing up and learning and becoming better, he’s just clueless about their sacrifices on his behalf. I became an angry middle aged man reading about this chowderhead!

The story was good though and that is why this got even 2 stars. It is also the reason I’m giving Maresca one more book to turn things around. But if the characters in the next book act just as stupidly, I’ll be coming down like a ton of bricks on that and abandon this author like a pile of donkey diarhea.

★★☆☆☆

 

bookstooge

 

28 thoughts on “The Thorn of Dentonhill (Maradaine #1) ★★☆☆☆”

  3. Haha if you gave two stars to the first book, don’t bother with the second. I enjoyed The Thorn even if Veranix is a bit dumb and a complete cliché but I was disappointed by the second because I found him even dumber. I have nothing against Maresca but, I think that he would be better off taking his time crafting his characters than releasing two books a year.

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  4. Yeah, I know it’s really not my decision or anything, but it seriously bothers me when authors write lots of different series or books at once. I would prefer they had their attention on one series, just cos otherwise it feels like I’m being sold something unfinished (that the author doesn’t care about finishing) Like I said, it’s not my decision, I guess I’ve just been scarred too often by the George R R Martin’s of the world. (okay phew- I clearly have pent up feelings about this- rant over and apologies)

    Ugh even as a YA (and as you know I read a lot of it 😉 ) I don’t expect the mc to be a total schmock. Stupid protagonists is actually a pet peeve of mine.

    hahaha your ending to this review is gold 😉

    Liked by 1 person

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    1. Rant away. It’s a real issue!

      Yep, too much stupid is as auto-no for me. This was walking the line.

      And thanks. I went to look for a pix, but nothing suitable that wasn’t stomach turning showed up in my google search.

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  5. Why are all male YA protagonists that dumb?! It’s driving me mad! I can’t read it anymore… Is it just me always picking up the bad YA books or are they all like that? I think it really is the second option!

    Am I too old for YA that I can’t relate with the characters anymore? 😀 They always seem to whinge and moan about unimportant things and get upset & offended so easily.

    Also, that sucks a lot about having to know about the other series!

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    1. YA has changed, or become more like what Millennials are, not what they should be. There is no aspiring to be better, no growing up. Nothing but a circle of immediate reactions with no real consequences.

      Liked by 2 people

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  7. Oh yes, Veranix is indeed a chowderhead, lol. Of the Maradaine series available, this was actually the one I ditched. It’s my least favorite of the three. I figure I would focus my attention on the other two, but then I’m still holding out hope that each series can be read independently even if some characters cross over. But I’m beginning to feel less and less confident of that now…

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  10. Stupid YA characters. You definitely scratched this one off my list forever. Also sort of find weird and annoying how those series are interconnected… I’d maybe be a bit tolerant about it if the first books are 6 star stories or something, but otherwise, this just sounds like those crossover events I come across with my DC comics where you have to pick up the issues of other series in order to follow the event…

    Liked by 1 person

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    1. Crossover like a comic is EXACTLY what I first thought when I read about how these series were setup.
      Last time I bought into that kind of cross over with individual comics was Silver Sable and the Infinity Crusade crossover back in ’93…

      But stupid character, yeah. That was the killer. And since other commenters have said he doesn’t change, I’ll be trying one of the other series, as I like the writing…

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

    1. I’m going to try the Maradaine: Constabulary series he has going, so don’t give up on him as an author just quite yet. Let me edge on over and see how stable the cliff is 😉

      Like

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  12. Pingback: January ’18 Roundup & Ramblings | Bookstooge's Reviews on the Road

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