Dragonskull: Sword of the Squire

A solid epic fantasy

This one is like a good macaroni and cheese: it isn’t fancy, but it’s satisfying comfort food for the restless spirit. Characters are well developed in the compact space of this novel.
The plot is generally solid, uses some old familiar tropes but to good effect. Everything doesn’t need to reinvent the wheel, and the story is fresh enough that it is engaging and fun. Some humour and a generally warm character to this book.
One small problem is the editing really needs redone: there’s a number of small errors in the text, places where the author was clearly deciding debating between two words phrases , intending to delete a one, and both appear in the published version. You. A see how that could be awkward. Also a few places where maybe using talk to text an appropriate word is replaced with an inappropriate similar sounding word - like “ward” instead of “forward”. Or “stead” when it should say “instead”.
Considering that the first book in the series is free and the second is $1, I think it’s a heck of a deal, even though there seem to be a number of books in the series.
I hope the next book is as much fun as this one, and the one after that… sometimes you don’t need challenging, grimdark modern realism… sometimes you just want a sweet and solid escape style epic fantasy. This delivers that in spades. Also, possibly a good choice for young adult readers, although there is mention of physical intimacy, there’s nothing graphic, and the language is simple and easy to digest. Easy reading. As a beach book it gets 8.9 palm trees out of a possible ten, on my personal scale.