The Colour of Hope product reviews

I have read another book by this author, so when we got a readers copy at work, I figured I'd give this one a read too, since I had enjoyed the previous offering enough. This book follows Hope and Darroch. Hope, a baby born in colour, in a world that has been stripped down into shades of black, grey and white, who ends up orphaned and living with a mage who brews her a potion to keep her colour hidden. Darroch, who as a child made a wish on a star (the night Hope was born) that colour would return, and eventually ends up joining a rebellion against their emperor and his necromancer.

While I was intrigued by the theme, I found the first half of the book to be really slow and seemed to be too much of a build up to the finale. I also didn't like how Hope's character was written, when we have her as a 5 year old etc. and she spends the whole time talking and acting like a 10/12 year old, it just didn't feel natural. The story finally picks up about halfway through, when she meets Baba Yaga (if you have a child who gets frightened easily, this may not be the book for them). The final fight scenes went really well, but again, I felt disappointed with the ending as you have this strong, evil character who just, sort of, fizzles in the end and that didn't feel genuine to the rest of the character.

I liked the book enough to finish it but I did not pass it on to be read by my mother, who I knew would get more annoyed with it than I did. It is a decent enough fantasy but could have been done so much better than it was.