The Zaragoza Chronicles: Beginning - A.J. Ayeni
It’s the year 2040, and every year the hugely wealthy, powerful, and mysterious Zaragoza family awards it’s highly prestigious scholarships to two people in every country around the world. The chosen applicants have to go through a rigorous 3 month orientation in Spain before they can take advantage of this Zaragoza New Beginnings scholarship, and all is definitely not as it seems which becomes very apparent to many of the applicants a few weeks into their orientation.
Femi, a Nigerian-American scholar feels uncomfortable from the get-go, and takes it up with his fellow suitemates to investigate what is really happening behind the scenes. (I don’t want to go into too much more detail about the plot because I don’t want to spoil it!).
A.J. Ayeni develops a dark, intriguing, and realistic world in his debut novel, and I’m really looking forward to reading the next episode in the Zaragoza Chronicles! This first part does a great job of setting the scene for what is to come, and for pulling the reader into this world of realistic fantasy, where new world orders and academia mix with the supernatural. I love how the author is able to mix a lot of heavy, important themes into the narrative, leaving the reader questioning everything, constantly, in the novel and in real life.
This novel is very heavy on dialogue, and for the most part it really helps with the character development. Sometimes there is a little too much dialogue, and detailed descriptions of the setting, and it can get a bit long winded. Not a huge issue, but there were a few areas that I wanted to skip through to get to the meatier stuff. But overall the detailed development of character and setting really help set the tone for the upcoming narratives!
If you love a dark academic setting mixed with a very near futuristic setting, powerful individuals with world domination themes, and a bunch of smart, brave, and interesting characters this book is a book for you!