The Son of the Morning

The Nightfall Wars, Book 1

By: Jacob Peppers

Narrated by: Derek Perkins

Length: 12 hrs and 41 mins

Publisher's summary

Fifty years ago, the nightwalkers appeared, creatures of shadow and darkness, thirsting for blood and death. Thousands died, and the kingdom of Entarna was brought to its knees. Then the Chosen came: six men and women endowed with powers by Amedan, the God of Fire and Light. The Chosen joined with the kingdom’s armies, and together, they managed to defeat the night’s creatures. At least for a time.

Alesh, servant to Chosen Olliman, the greatest of Amedan’s priests, knows well what the darkness holds. He saw it, as a child, when his father and mother were killed, and he was left with a blackened, festering scar that refuses to heal.

The day wanes, and the night comes again, but when those chosen to protect the kingdom are unable or unwilling to help; when the fellowships of the past have crumbled, it is left to an orphaned servant - a man many believe to be cursed - to stand against the rising darkness.

©2017 Jacob Peppers (P)2018 Podium Publishing

Says much, without saying much at all.

This is one of those books where you find yourself saying, "Just skip to the end!" Practically the whole book is just the same "details" over and over. Peppers seems to use ten words in the place where one would suffice. An example would be the dream the main character has often, almost every other chapter. Instead of describing the dream once in detail, He does so every single time; almost word for word. Another would be, instead of using a few words to describe a bar keeper we only meet once, Peppers spends an exuberant amount of time describing his clothing, his scar, his nose, his grin, his bearing, etc. This is all for a character that only speaks a hand full of words the entire book! Almost everything is filler, useless information that does nothing to further the story.

While I think the idea of the book is sound, it's execution is mediocre. The "story" we are given is full of contradictions! From the main character being a vomiting weakling one moment, bowing as scraping, to a full on "badass" killing and screaming a war cry, always, "You bastard! I'm going to kill you!" This goes back and forth the whole story, there is no character growth.

The "Gods" in the book are just as bad, seeming to switch sides at a moments notice, it's ridiculous!

Something else that caught my attention is this, almost everyone, be it a guard to a servant, king or peasant, everyone is an asshole. Always summed up the same exact way, "He sneered...", "He spat...", "He smiled cruelly...", "He laughed mockingly..." Over and over. Save for the main characters friends, this rule applies to everyone.

The bad guys, monsters called, "Nightlings" are nothing special either. They do seem a bit OP strength wise, but are really stupid. Simple fire keeps them at bay.

The main character can't control his powers until the last thirty minutes of the book, powers we are made to believe he's had all his life.

As stated above, Peppers says much, without saying much at all. The book only changes scenery three times. Two cities, and a short bit traveling across country. I predicted the plot about four hours in, I wasn't disappointed. I'll be refunding this book, it's just thirteen hours of nothing.

At times it is amazing

I don't know, man. This book is kind of a head scratcher for me. There were parts that were just bloody stunning and then there were things that happened that made me say, "huh?" I have it on the list to listen to again, and maybe it will fall into place then. If so I will update this review.

Disappointing

Author tries too hard to tell his story . His attempts end up making his characters come across as idiots who couldn’t find there way out of a 4x4 closet with one open door. The underlying story could have been good if not for the characters inability to see the obvious scenarios the author kept placing in front of them (‘it’s just my imagination’). It was so painful that I spent the entire time trying to rush to the end. Unfortunately this was not limited to one character. Thus the story itself kept getting lost in my frustration with the clueless characters.

Smooth listen, with some flaws

So, the good: the reader. His voice added a nice flavor to the story. The bad: the story. Its not an awful story, but it is a little too convenient at times. I did find myself skipping ahead...in an effort to maintain sanity. With all that said, I will probably get the second in the series just to see where it goes. If it continues down the same path, I will probably quit the series.

Can I recommend? Eh. When I read synopsis I was expecting something different....I never felt the "god" conflict until the very end. I think others will have to roll the dice on this one.

This book series could make a reader out of me!

This was a great book! I keep reading from this author and like his writing more and more. I am normally not a reader save an author or two, and really haven't read any other books in this genre. This book made me excited to see the next installment in the series. The narrator was also excellent and used many different voices for characters that helped them to come alive! Awesome book!

MAN WHAT AN EXCELLENT BOOK!!!!

Very good and great character development. can't wait for book 2!! I've looked for possible release dates and just disapointed.lol Good job to you Jacob.

This is an excellent book!

ok, so maybe you don't feel comfortable reading about an LGTBQ character - get over it. it's a relatively small part of the book, and provides some excellent narrative development with the character. I cannot wait for book 2, and look forward to more Jacob Peppers books.

Great

Really good book. Perfectly paced with just the right amount of world building and suspense.

Riveting

Riveting from start to finish. Burnt through this one quickly without putting it down.

Fantastic Start!

What a great start to a new series! I really enjoy the main characters and can’t wait to see where their journey takes them in book 2. Nice work Mr. Peppers and as always, Derek Perkins is terrific.

Good but not great

Having read the free prequel novella I thought I would give this series a go. I did enjoy it, though the story hasn’t really settled yet. I found the main character a bit inconsistent( from floundering youth to cold blooded killer then back again). The narrator was good but wouldn’t be a favourite. Might give it a bit of time before continuing with the series.

Meh

the story could be really good, BUT there are a lot of redundancies in the story line, too much emphasis on unnecessary stuff. The author tries to build a vibrant and interesting world, but it feels more like an essay written for college where the wordcount has to be met.
The performance is good, given with what is there to work with. a few more dialects would have been great to allow distinguishing between individuals a bit better.
I wanted to try as i loved the prequel included with Audible , but was left a disappointed.

Good potential but... dumb protagonist.

Interesting story but very DUMB main character. So incredibly Dimwitted, Slow, Gullible and foolish. Too dumb to remain believable.

Great read

After listening to Novella 0.5, the prequel to this series, while it was included with my membership I was hooked and had to continue the story.
This book comes back to the character introduced in book 0.5 years later and the story was gripping and entertaining throughout. I'm glad it wasn't as gory as I was expecting and, as the story develops, I was definately getting wheel of time vibes from the plot. Thoroughly enjoyable read in its own right, however, and performed well. looking forward to getting stuck into book 2!

Disappointing after early promise

Having listened to The Forging of Dawn which showed some promise with what appeared to be some reasonably subtle character development and a fairly convincing threat to humanity, this book loses it's way fairly early on: The main character in this book seems pretty dense and continuously fails to spot the obvious, so is hard to like or too much about. The author often flags his mistakes in advance which only succeeds in annoying the reader when the obvious happens. I have not completed the book as it seems very clear to me it will continue to annoy rather then entertain. I am not a demanding reader from a literary point of view but I really can't personally see myself gaining enough from this rather formulaic writing. Fantasy is often written with an imaginary distant past in mind (as with this one) and it suits the British actor narrating better than an American voice where a long past history may seem too unlikely. The author is however American and this is obvious from the sentence construction (eg regular use of 'off of'). While it matters little to me whether the writing is American or British, the style of writing might suit an American actor better (or some editing to better suit a British voice actor if that was what the author intended).