Review - The Flight of the Griffin by C.M. Gray

The Kingdom is dying…

The Darkness is coming… the balance between Order and Chaos is rapidly shifting and the world is falling towards evil and horror, and all misery that Chaos will bring.

But there is hope…

Pardigan’s had enough, he’s only 12, but he’s breaking into the home of one of Freya's richest merchants... and he’s doing it tonight…

A burglary that will change their lives forever sets four friends upon a quest, a race against time, to locate three magical objects and complete an ancient and desperate spell.

Sailing their boat The Griffin, the crew are quickly pursued by The Hawk, an evil bounty hunter and master of dark sorcery, and Belial, King of Demons and champion of Chaos who seeks to rule the world of man… yet first he must capture the crew of The Griffin and end their quest…

It's been a while since I picked up a book like The Flight of the Griffin by C.M Gray. I've been reading mostly Amish Fiction lately so it was nice to jump back in to the world of fantasy.

The four friends in this story embark on a Quest that has fallen to them to complete thanks to the skilled thievery of one of their own. With the stolen loot comes a guide that can take the form of a cat, owl, panther, and girl. Mahra. It's her job, although she can't quite remember all of it, to ensure that specific tasks are carried out in a specific order in the hopes that the world will once more balance itself out and Chaos will no longer reign supreme. Their efforts are thwarted by the victim of their theft, his hired thug, and a demon with a hunger for human flesh.

I wish I had read this book when I was younger. Or rather, that it had been around to read. One of my favorite parts of the entire story was when Pardigan, Tarent, Quint, and Loras were transformed in to the version of themselves they it seems they were supposed to be all along. I mean, what young person wouldn't give their left arm to go from being just an ordinary, trouble making dreamer to a super human version of themselves with the ability to turn invisible, or perform outstanding magic, or disappear from one place and reappear in another. It's an amazing story simply for that part of the book. It gives voice to the wishes of countless people who secretly wish they could do the things these 4 do in this story.

I love the world that they live in, minus the bad things that are happening as a result of it being unbalanced. I loved the ugly Hidden and the entertaining Azif. Bartholomew was ridiculous but provided comic relief on more than one occasion. The descriptions of all of these people and the places they were going was such that I could imagine it all in my head as if it were right in front of me. There were also some awesome plot twists, especially toward the end, that made the story that much more... just... wonderful.

There wasn't really one character that I'd call my favorite, I don't think. Each one had something special about him (or her) and a purpose that made them all equally important and interesting to read about. I can tell you, though, that Hawk was definitely my least favorite. Why not the demon he summoned, you ask. Well, a demon is a demon and will act as demons do. It's in their nature. Hawk was the evil behind the demon and the reason for it's existence in the human world.

The fact that there were mysterious characters that appeared or awakened at certain points throughout the story was another of my favorite parts. Kind of reminds me of how, at the end of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, Capt. Barbosa is hidden in the back room of Tia Dalma's hut, just waiting to be brought back in to the story.

The Flight of the Griffin was fantastic. It was a fun read and it kept me entertained. It's good for younger readers but can be enjoyed by older readers as well as everyone in between. And I would recommend it to anyone looking for a quick-ish adventurous fantasy novel that's action packed and magical.