After the Great Death humans are now living in small hunting communities. Next to the weird glowing mushrooms people have evolved into something alien. Murderous and alien. To get his wife back, Joachim must find the Black Oracle and the ingredients for some weird immortality potion. But not before he travels to the realm of ZALM.

Okay, I should mention that the Dutch word for salmon is 'zalm', something I guess the author was unaware of. Because when reading I had to giggle at the amount of times they talk about the 'realm of Zalm'. I think it's something anyone who's fluent in multiple languages will have come across with. Words that have a different meaning in the two languages. If you ask me, it's one of the perks of knowing more than one language although at times it can be a bit confusing.

Back to the book. Leaving the zalm-hilarity aside, it was nothing special. I was a bit disappointed at the clichés used. There are a lot of coincidences and people arriving at just the right times. Even more, both the story of Joachim's village and the people of Zalm couldn't really hold my interest. I was wondering why these other people, who apparently evolved into murderous creatures (which sure must take some time) still speak the same language as the humans, while being different in any possible way.

I'd expected more of this book, but unfortunately it didn't work for me.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!