The first volume of Patrick Dandrea’s Riftbound Saga is a conventional high fantasy that follows two adventurers—an elven ranger named Talon and a half-elven mage named Arrabella—as they and their small group of heroes fight an unspeakable evil in an attempt to restore peace to the land.

Talon and Arrabella, timeless soul mates, embark on a mission to find a home. “A place of peace. The world beyond is burning with conflict and shadow. Here, we feel the memory of what was—and the hope of what may be again.” But they quickly realize their entire realm is in danger. The Veil between worlds is thinning, and a fiendish overlord and his demonic minions are close to breaking through.

A big concern with this novel is Dandrea’s writing style, which is deeply lyrical à la Ursula K. Le Guin, Patricia A. McKillip, Cecillia Dart-Thornton, etc. For example, Dandrea writes: “They ascended by living corridors where roots arched to form vaults, and stone causeways stitched the spaces between ancient trunks…”

The overuse of this poetic style, however, leads to a proliferation of purple prose, which slows momentum, decreases intensity, and—in some cases—takes focus off the story due to ill-conceived, and unnecessary, imagery. Here are just a few examples: “His yawn sounded like mountains cracking at dawn,” and “…the fear he felt when the air had cracked like breaking glass still lingered in his chest like smoke.”

The biggest issue, however, is the lack of significant world-building. Talon and Bella travel to numerous fantastical locales and interact with some intriguing characters—their griffin companion; a unicorn; and a giant grizzly bear, who is much more than a woodland mammal—but the absence of immersive description leads to a two-dimensional effect, more comparable to engaging in a Dungeons & Dragons campaign than reading a fantasy novel.

Lack of character depth, inconsistent world-building, and overwriting reduce the narrative’s impact as an emotionally compelling, page-turning fantasy.