August 2021 Book Club: Dark Lord of Derkholm by Diana Wynne Jones

  

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Category: Young Adult
Genre: Fantasy
Content:

 

Everyone - wizards, soldiers, farmers, elves, dragons, kings and queens alike - is fed up with Mr Chesney's Pilgrim Parties: groups of tourists from the world next door who descend en masse every year to take the Grand Tour. What they expect are all the trappings of a grand fantasy adventure, including the Evil Enchantress, Wizard Guides, the Dark Lord, Winged Minions, and all. And every year different people are chosen to play these parts. But now they've had enough: Mr Chesney may be backed by a very powerful demon, but the Oracles have spoken. Now it's up to the Wizard Derk and his son Blade, this year's Dark Lord and Wizard Guide, not to mention Blade's griffin brothers and sisters, to save the world from Mr Chesney's depredations.

 

This was our book club read for August 2021, but I just couldn't get into it. My main problems with it were, in the beginning I felt like I was just dropped into the middle of a story, and then there is way too much set up in this book and not enough actually happening. I've always wanted to try a Diana Wynne Jones book, so it makes me sad that I wasn't able to finish this. I guess it just wasn't for me.