Book Review: Astrid Falls by Andrew Cownden

Vancouver is falling down—crumbling into sand.

Welcome to one of the October 22nd stops on the blog tour for Astrid Falls by Andrew Cownden with Goddess Fish Promotions. Be sure to follow the rest of the tour for more reviews and a giveaway! More on that at the end of this post.

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About the Book

Astrid Falls
A Legend of Vancouver
by Andrew Cownden

Published 12 June 2024
Tellwell Talent

Genre: Fantasy
Page Count: 409
Add it to your Goodreads TBR!

Vancouver is falling down—crumbling into sand. To save it, Astrid O’Brien boards a bus to a parallel dimension, there to confront the demons of the city, and to answer the question: Are we who we’re told we are, or who we decide to be?

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Excerpt

A three-storey building had collapsed into a pile of sand, and no one seemed to care. And that made Astrid angry. She wanted to walk up to every one of them and shout in their faces and make them look, show them what they’d lost, show them what they never knew they had. She was ready to start a fight with the entire city.

“Will you be careful?”

It sounded like Emily’s voice, but it was smaller, weaker, and much, much older than Astrid had ever heard it before. Her aunt was standing at the base of the dune, a tiny bundle of scarves before a mountain of sand, arms folded around herself. She was weeping.

“Promise me you’ll be careful? Where you need to go … I can’t come with you. I can’t be there to protect you. So I need you to promise me, Astrid. Please. Will you be careful?”

If there had ever been an anchor in Astrid’s life—some dependable constant that assured her the world was a thing that could be understood—it had been the unflappable fortitude of her Aunt Emily. Seeing her now, looking so uncertain and afraid, Astrid felt herself become fully untethered and set adrift into an unfathomable universe. Words faltered in her throat.

“I’ll try,” she answered.

Emily winced against tears. She bowed her head. “Alright,” she said. “Then this is what you have to do.”

My Review

My Rating: 5 Stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Consider “liking” my review on Goodreads!

I was granted complimentary access to Astrid Falls by Andrew Cownden as part of my participation in a blog tour for this title with Goddess Fish Promotions. Thank you to all involved in affording me this opportunity! My thoughts are my own and my review is honest.

I had a great time reading Astrid Falls! I lost count of the number of lines that made me grin or laugh in the first chapter. Cownden has a way of capturing all the mundane details of existence in a way that is so relatable and entertaining. Astrid feels like every clever shy girl stuck in a young adult’s menial job, and that was me once. I also happen to have grown up in the Vancouver area, so the setting felt so nostalgic. (I don’t need to do my research about the setting, but thanks dear author for encouraging everyone to do so!)

Sincerely, I could have read an entire novel’s worth of Astrid’s average day-to-day, but the adventure begins swiftly, and our awkward, anxious heroine has to find the strength to save Vancouver, and humanity in general, all on her own. When the city turns to nothing but sand, it all comes down to our unlikely hero and the band of fellow misfits she finds along the way.

Oh, pay close attention to the footnotes. They’ll lead you astray, but it’s much more fun that way!

About the Author

Andrew Cownden is an actor and writer living in Vancouver, Canada. ASTRID FALLS is his first novel.

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Giveaway Alert!

Andrew Cownden will be awarding a $10 Amazon/BN gift card to a randomly drawn winner.

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