A Trinity of Chosen – An Age of Avarath by JP Behrens
Publisher: Budget Shakespeare Aspirations
Genre: Young Adult (14 – 18 y.o.), Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Contemporary
Rating: 3 Stars
Reviewed by AstilbeBilly has felt forgotten and invisible since the day his mother passed away. He tries to escape into the fantasy worlds of video games and books.
One day, while at the mall with his step-mother, they get into an argument and Billy runs away. She tries to give chase, but Billy loses her in the crowd. Before she can find him, reality shifts and Billy finds that no one can see or hear him any longer.
However, one blind girl by the name of Miranda can perceive him by his aura. She’s been trapped in the mall, invisible to the world, for over fifty years. Complications force them to flee the mall and enter the world of Avarath.
Together, with the help of Tuac, a carnivorous, affable giant, and Swift, a feral nine-year-old boy, they must confront their destiny as The Chosen of Avarath. While searching for a way home, they will influence a world.
But whether the change they bring will be good or ill, no one can say for sure.
Anything is possible with a little luck and effort.
Focusing on friendship was a great decision for these characters. Given that Billy didn’t know Miranda, Tuac, or Swift when the first chapter began, I was impressed by how close they all became later on. It’s not easy to weave such a thing together, especially when the protagonists are also attempting to survive in a dangerous world where many different types of creatures are actively hunting them down. Kudos to the author for understanding the importance of these relationships and spending so much time developing them.
I had trouble with the pacing of this novel. Some scenes sped by while others felt much slower to me due to the time spent on dialogue and descriptions of the unusual places the characters visited. While I preferred the faster pacing, I could have adjusted to something slower, too, if every chapter had been written that way. More than anything, switching between the two speeds was what interrupted my immersion in the plot and encouraged me to select a lower rating.
With that being said, the world building was strong and creative. Some aspects of it need to be kept out of this review for spoiler reasons, but I can say that I truly enjoyed the early scenes that showed how Billy shifted into this alternate reality while at the mall with his stepmother as well as the later descriptions of how dragon eggs were incubated and hatched. The inclusion of so many little details like these made this world come alive in my imagination and kept me reading despite my struggles with the pacing.
A Trinity of Chosen – An Age of Avarath was filled with adventure.





















