What a fun book!! I had so much fun reading it that I'm requiring my teenage son to read it, too. This is a very quick read as the book is only 127 pages long, but it packs a lot into those 127 pages. Poor Lord Arkus just wants to be the best villain he can be, but instead of capturing an evil spirit to help him wreak vengeance on his sworn enemy, Prince Kellemar, "a last-minute mistake leaves him with a Sparkling instead--"a goody-goody spirit that helps heroes, watches over little children, and messes up villains' plans." Will Lord Arkus be able to reach supervillain status, or will the Sparkling's influence turn him into a hero instead? As this was just book 1, I plan on reading the next book in the series to find out!

Highly recommend - 5/5 stars.

*** I would like to thank NetGalley and Laura Lond for the opportunity to read and review this book. ( )

Though the concept of a villain as a maincharacter was interesting. It wasnt. Or maybe it was the poor potrayal of the character. ( )

I enjoy this (and its successor) immensely, especially the audio version. There is just one weird and unexplained thing I want to point out that happens at the beginning. This is a Medievalish fantasy with magic and supernatural creatures but not technology. Yet, in the beginning when Arkus is staking out the lake to capture the Gormak, he says "I checked my watch," like it's modern day and he looked at his left wrist or consulted a pocketwatch?? I know it's a little nitpicky, but it really stuck out for me, especially since there are no other references to other devices of a similar nature in anywhere else in either story. I know Arkus had to try to wait for four minutes and did not want to go over five minutes, but I thought he would just kind of guesstimate or have some other way of telling the exact time that was not mechanical. ( )

Fast and fun, I would say middle grade, perhaps? Our main character is an unapologetic villain who finds out that he might not be as evil as he thought. He discovers his heroic side thanks to a not-quite-how-he-planned sidekick who nudges him in the right directions when he needs it. Amusing and kind of sweet. I'm not sure I will continue the series, but it was fun little read. ( )

He says he’s a villain, and he considers himself a good one — or would that a bad one? But he’s not. Not really. Not at heart. At his core, it seems that the Dark Lord Arkus (AKA the Lakeland Knight) is a hero in denial. In the course of this story, circumstances, and his reactions to them, make it increasingly difficult for him to ignore this.

To avoid spoilers, I’ll say little more about the plot.

The setting is a traditional fantasy world with kings, princes, knights, an evil necromancer with skeleton minions, and even a damsel in distress at one point. Then, there are the gormarks and the sparklings. They are described as ‘spirits,’ although they seem more like fairies or something like that to me. Of course, there are no good, commonly accepted scientific definitions for fantasy creatures like these. After all, they’re imaginary, but I tend to think of ‘spirits’ as a synonym for ‘ghosts,’ whereas the gormarks and sparklings definitely can take a physical form, and Arkus ends up with two of them physically following him. One of them is of the ‘evil’ gormark variety, and it wants to kill him. The other is a ‘sparkling,’ which everyone knows only attach themselves to true heroes.

The story is told in first person, with Arkus as the narrator, and the prose style makes it read almost like a journal or a letter (or, these days, a blog post). The vocabulary is simple, and although there were a few places where word choice or syntax seemed odd to me, overall the prose is well executed given the style.

An added bonus in this book is the artwork. There are several sketches of scenes, normally between chapters, and they are well done in an appropriate fantasy style. They are a nice addition to the story.

This is not a sophisticated book. It’s a fairytale. The simple message is that it is better to be loved than feared. It is better to help than to harm. There is little by way of satire, social commentary, or philosophical insight, but these timeless truths are worth repeating. The prose, straightforward plot, and length put this short book firmly in the YA category. Nonetheless, I think many older readers will enjoy it. I did. There is a good bit of innocent humor and it is a lot of fun. I recommend it for those who like to read about true heroes.
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