Crystal Heart

I love a book that has a human character that has been given a touch of magic. The main character, Mellisa, in Crystal Heart has the gift from her mother's side of the family. This new part of her life is confusing, challenging and leads her to grow in many, many ways. She has a few friends who have known her for years but never told her they knew she was more than she believed herself to be. Together they must find a way to seal an evil force before he crosses into the human world to destroy it. The book finishes with a peek into a further story.

There are a lot of great things going for this book; leprechauns, elves, mermaids, witches...a great fantasy world! It's a fairly quick read. Unfortunately, the writing is repetitive and and I felt it geared more toward middle-grade than YA which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but if you're going into a book expecting one thing and find another completely, it can be a bit of a letdown.

The characters are relatable, but fairly simplistic. I'd wish there had been a bit more depth to our main protagonist, Mellissa. She just didn't feel 18 to me with some of her mannerisms and thoughts.

Overall, the book has some great potential...it just missed that mark. It was good read if you can get around some of the repetitiveness.

Thank you BHC Press and LibraryThing for the advanced e-copy to read and review honestly. ( )

Mellissa is a normal girl with a normal life. Or so she thinks until a talking rabbit, sorry, leprechaun changeling, tells her that she is in fact heir to the Elves’ throne and chosen keeper of the Heart Crystal, a powerful magical artifact. If all this wasn’t enough, Mellissa’s role as keeper of the Heart Crystal makes her responsible for keeping the evil, dark leprechaun, Kadon, in his magical prison before he escapes and ends the world. Can Mellissa handle the pressure of her newfound abilities and stop Kadon? Or is the human world about to be invaded by magic?

Note: I was provided a ebook copy of Crystal Heart through LibraryThing Early Reviewers in exchange for an honest review.

Crystal Heart had a lot of things going for it. First of all, I love the fantasy universe created. Crystal Heart has everything: fairies, leprechauns (yes, some of them are evil, which is sad), nymphs, elves, mermaids, warlocks, and witches. Morris definitely has plenty to work with in any sequels. Obviously, being in this fairy universe was super fun. It is the kind of light, traditional fantasy that not many YA books have anymore, and I enjoyed it a lot. I thought the magic/powers used by the characters were pretty well developed, and I enjoyed watching Mellissa become more confident with her abilities.

I also liked a lot of the characters and their interactions. Mellissa’s relationships with her friends, Matt and Victoria, were cute and engaging. The changeling (read: shapeshifter, not evil fairy baby-stealer) Gregory is Mellissa’s love interest, and their squabbles were adorable. They go from being reluctant acquaintances to friends and maybe something more, and I loved watching this progression. Their relationship felt very real, and was one of the highlights for me.

So, now some of the things I didn’t like as well. Although Mellissa was relatively likable and I enjoyed watching her interact with the other characters, she isn’t a very deep character herself. One of the problems with Crystal Heart is there is a lot of telling rather than showing, and this made Mellissa pretty shallow as a character. The only thoughts I got to hear from her were fairly simplistic and almost childlike. For instance, ‘this is all my fault’ or ‘I’m scared of losing anyone’. In the scenes that should have been fraught with emotion, all I got to see was what was happening, not how Mellissa felt about it. She would have been a much more three-dimensional character if I had known more about what she was thinking, feeling, and seeing, rather than just what she was doing. In some ways, reading Crystal Heart felt more like watching a movie than reading a book. I felt like an observer, not like I was really there.

I think some of this is probably due to Crystal Heart being a debut novel. Similarly, sometimes the speech patterns or conversations came off a little stilted. I hope that in future books, Morris’s work will become more and more engaging. Crystal Heart has a lot of good points and potential, but it is a little unpolished. Aside from that, I wish there had been a little more romance between Greg and Mellissa, but I am hoping it will be developed further in the next book(s). I was also a little disappointed that Crystal Heart was the first in a series (don’t know the name of it) instead of being a standalone. I think it would have made a nice standalone, and I tend to prefer them, personally.

Following Good
Language was minimal. Other than some humorous references (ex. Mellissa’s friend buying her a contraceptive potion), there wasn’t much sexual content. One of the non-human species was described as gender-fluid until they chose a gender for reproductive purposes. Other than that, no LGBT content. No religious content.

Rating
I am giving Crystal Heart three stars. I really liked the fantasy, the humor, and aspects of the characters. I thought the plot was fairly solid, if predictable at times. I just wish there had been a lot more sensory detail in the writing and character depth in the heroine. I am interested if some of this is corrected in any sequels, and I would still recommend for someone looking for a cute, light YA fantasy. ( )

Overall this isn't a bad book, it just wasn't what I was expecting.
The plot is great, you have elves, magic, leprechauns, what's not to like about that?
My only issues were that the characters came off a little mature for their ages and the writing is a little awkward in places. I feel like the author tells more than she shows, and it took something away from the story. In a lot of places everything is spelled out and the dialog seems a little forced because they are saying everything instead of there being dialog mixed with action.
In the end, it's a good story even if the delivery is a little bumpy. ( )