James Potter and the Hall of Elders’ Crossing by G. Norman Lippert

Format: eBook

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Blurb

What’s it like to be the son of the most famous wizard of all time?

James Potter thinks he knows, but as he begins his own adventure at Hogwarts, he discovers just how much of a challenge it really is to live up to the legend of the great Harry Potter.

As if it wasn’t enough dealing with the delegates from the American wizarding school and figuring out the mysteriously polite Slytherins, James and his new friends, Ralph and Zane, begin to uncover a secret plot that could pit the Muggle and the Magical worlds against each other in all-out war.

Now, with the help of Ted Lupin and his band of merry mischief makers (The Gremlins), James must race to stop a war that could change the world forever. His only hope is to learn the difference between being a hero and being the son of a hero.

My review

I don’t usually read fan fiction, but I saw this ebook at the author’s website and felt impressed by the presentation of both the book and the website and decided to give it a try. I had nothing to lose as the ebook is free. In fact, there are actually three books in the series and all are given away for free.

I finished the book in early December 2012, but just haven’t had time to write a review until now.

James Potter and the Hall of Elders’ Crossing is the first book of three. The books are based on J. K. Rowling’s books, characters and world, but they are not written by her. The author of this series is G. Norman Lippert.

It is James’ first year at Hogwarts and we get to meet several characters from the Harry Potter series. The book was written in the essence of the Rowling books, which I was thankful for. There were no jolting scenes that made me think “that’s not right”. In fact, for fan fiction, the book was very well written. I enjoyed it immensely.

All Potter books have Quidditch scenes. I didn’t like them in the Rowling books and didn’t like them in this book either. Sorry, but Quidditch is boring and I find myself skimming over the paragraphs hoping not to miss anything important.

James has two friends, Zane and Ralph. It took me a short while to get used to them. The interesting thing that happened at the hat sorting was that the three friends were placed in different houses. It will be fun to see how that turns out.

Harry makes several appearances. I think that was the hardest thing to cope with, Harry as an adult and as a parent. Thankfully, his scenes didn’t try to upstage James and there wasn’t a lot of focus on him.

Another thing I liked was the references made between the original books and this one. They served as well placed reminders of what happened then and connected the two series. It was like reading about old friends and revisiting precious memories.

The climax involved Merlin. However, something was lacking from this part of the book. I felt as if something magnificent was able to happen, but it didn’t, which was a bit disappointing.

This isn’t a perfect book, but few are. There are sections that are long-winded, as there were in the J. K. Rowling books too. But overall I enjoyed the book a lot. I felt as if I was back in Hogwarts and that is not a bad feeling.

I will certainly be reading James Potter and the Curse of the Gatekeeper. `