Thoughts on "High King's Tomb"

I've been reading High King's Tomb by Kristen Britain. I'm really enjoying the book, but I do have one complaint. I also have an observation I'd like to make. If you're super sensitive about potential book spoilers you might want to skip this post, but I don't think that I'll be saying anything too revealing.

First, my observation.

Polytheism is the norm for people in this book. It's just a fact of life. Except for the bad guys. The bad guys believe in and worship only one god.

So the good guys are polytheistic, while the bad guys are monotheistic. I'm not sure if this is Britain's way of commenting on the Judeo-Christian faiths or if it's unrelated to her opinion of the world religions.

(I actually looked at wikipedia to see if I could find out her religion, but it doesn't say.)

Now, my complaint.

Enough with Tolkien! I have no objection to writers who find inspiration from Tolkien's books, but there's a difference between being inspired by Tolkien and what Britain's doing. I ought to be reading her book and say "Hey, I think I know where the inspiration for this came from," not "Wait a minute, that's Tolkien..."

The Eletians are too much like Tolkien's elves, the eagles are so like Tolkien's eagles, and certain other details are so much like Lord of the Rings that I want to shake the book in frustration.