My 3 star rating of this book is a comment on the price. $7.99 for a 95 page book which turned out to be the prequel to some other book is a rather hefty price to pay for a book.
Second, maybe it's naive, but I was kind of hoping that the book would be set in Kenya. I suppose the writer is going for a wider, more international audience (thus, make the characters western, and the setting American), but I don't think the book would have suffered if the characters were in Nairobi. It's exactly the kind of book I'd like with Kenyan characters. A fantasy tale not weighed down with political complaining.
That said; this is probably one of the better written, light reading books I've read this year. The book opens like chapter 9 in a "Mills and Boon", and then totally shift direction with the death of the two main characters, Phil and Lil.
And then things get weird. We're introduced to a whole bunch of very intriguing, very strange characters. Phil and Lil go on a quest, and then the book ends.
The book is very easy to read, and actually quite unputdownable, however, there is too little payback for the effort. The secondary characters remain a little too vague, no mystery is resolved, and there is the kind of feeling that we're still reading chapter 5 of a larger story.
I believe that although books are part of a series, each book should be able to stand alone as part of complete tale. This doesn't quite come through.
Would I read Annemarie Musawale again, yes.
Would I recommend this book? Maybe if it is sold as a package with the next book. (Which I have not read).