REVIEW; The Purple Haze

Title: The Purple Haze
Series: The Western Lands and All That Really Matters
Author: Andrew Einspruch 
Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, Humour
Type: E-book
Publisher: Wild Pure Heart

Her twin abducted. A treacherous rescue mission. Can an unproven princess escape a prophecy of doom?

Princess Eloise Hydra Gumball III prefers things just exactly so. As the meticulous Future Ruler and Heir with an almost-useless magical gift, she’s in no hurry to take the throne. But when a seer foretells her royal twin’s peril, a simple quest with her champion friend to rescue the girl becomes a complicated journey filled with danger.

Thrown completely out of her comfort zone and with her wayward sister slipping through her fingers, Eloise’s desperate hunt turns to disaster when she’s slammed behind bars in an unfamiliar realm. And even though she persuades the stern monarch to set them free and help them secure a ship, she soon finds herself sailing headfirst into a menacing violet fog.

Can Eloise find her sister and her own strength before they fall to the deadly mist’s lethal embrace?

The Purple Haze is the sharp-witted first book in the Western Lands and All That Really Matters humorous fantasy series. If you like tongue-in-cheek humor, vivid medieval worlds, and clever cultural references, then you’ll love Andrew Einspruch’s lively adventure.

Thank you Booktasters and Andrew Einspruch for the copy of the book!

This was such an interesting read. In the vein of The Princess Bride, this was something of a satire or parody of the genre, but crafted in such a way that you can tell the author really loved these sorts of stories. It wasn’t mean-spirited or mocking, but rather so lovingly put together that invites you into the joke. It makes fun of fantasy quest stories while being one, and an entertaining one at that.

The novel is peppered with tongue-in-cheek references, humourous asides and jokes that make fun of genre conventions – while also abiding by them – and not so gently pokes fun at monarchies as well. It was supremely entertaining and I spent a lot of time giggling to myself as I caught the references – or in some cases, caught them after a few more pages.

We’ve got an array of different characters who fit into the ‘accepted’ genre stereotypes, but a little to the left. There’s a damsel princess, but also a princess saviour, and neither are quite fit to the trope they occupy. We’ve got animal companions – a number of them, actually – who have different tones, characteristics and plot-related places to fill. We’ve got a stoic knight who has, I think, the least number of sentences spoken in the novel? I could be wrong, but I do want to know more about this character. He fascinates me.

If I have one gripe about the novel, it’s that for a large part of it, it felt more like world-building with the plot as a dressing. A lot of information about the towns and the histories given as the cast of characters travel, but the plot was relatively plodding along until about the last quarter, when it picked up so much I couldn’t put the book down. It was so was fastpaced and fun and left on a cliffhanger that makes me excited for book 2.

As I’ve mentioned before, I have been struggling to read due to health reasons, so getting through this took longer than it might for others, but overall, it was an entertaining read. I’ll be picking up book 2 in 2025 for sure.

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