Book Review – Irish Imbas: Celtic Mythology Collection 2016 (Celtic Mythology Collections Book 1) by Brian O’Sullivan
First published, 2016
⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
These are stories from ancient Celtic culture, but revamped for a modern audience of readers. I loved the stories – some of which I’d already heard of, The Salmon of Knowledge, The Children of Lir, and I loved reading about the legend of the Selkie and the misunderstanding of Fairies.
The writing was beautiful and poetic, very touching, I really enjoyed it.
The shorts conclude with a short section about writing competitions, and a whole heap of reviews and testimonials which I found rather tiresome.
And then, we get to the Bonus Extract from FIONN: Defence of Ráth Bládhma. Now, I don’t know about you, but when I hear the phrase ‘Bonus Material’, I assume there’ll be a chapter or two from another book, inserted as a teaser at the end of the book – to encourage the reader to try some of the author’s other books. Said teaser will take up, what, 5-10% of the overall book. That sounds right, doesn’t it?
Read on my Kindle, I was able to see exactly where the bonus extract began – at 37%. Although well written, it felt a little bit cynical to shove a pile of book at the end of what I’d been reading. I did enjoy it, but it wasn’t what I was expecting from this collection.
It’s only due to the quality of the writing that I stuck with the four stars. An extract that takes up more than half the book would ordinarily have pushed me towards a three.
Petrina Binney - Author 