A slog through the bog.
Coming-of-age in Roman-occupied Britain.
Thirteen-year-old Hobble lives with her parents in a small, isolated community at the edge of a bog. Far from the eastern coast, their lives are largely untouched by Emperor Claudius’ desire to claim all of Britannia for Rome. But Hobble knows that this is about to change, because the young seer has had a vision of Romans coming to Black Lake. Her mother, Devout, has bitter recollections of an earlier incursion—and her experiences during that time will have a profound effect on Hobble’s fate. The stories of both daughter and mother unfold in alternating chapters. Buchanan devotes many, many pages to worldbuilding, at the expense of advancing the narrative. Nevertheless, Black Lake and the broader first-century Britain around it never feel like more than a stage set. The characters are mostly flat as well. Devout’s first love, Arc, is representative in that he fits a type but lacks specificity. He is, like Devout, a member of their community’s lowest caste but he is, apparently, singular because he knows “the industry of bees and the magnificence of the nighttime sky.” Contemporary clichés like this don’t do much to help a reader find their way back into an imagined past. The book succeeds best at recalling other books, most particularly Manda Scott’s Dreaming the Serpent Spear. Both authors use Lindow Man—a body uncovered by peat diggers in Northwest England in 1984—in strikingly similar ways. The most distinctive element of Buchanan’s novel is the druid Fox. Historical fiction set in pre-Christian Britain often depicts druids as fonts of ancestral wisdom, as spiritual savants attuned to nature. Fox is not that. He is, instead, a greedy, power-hungry zealot who murders puppies and, ultimately, demands human sacrifice. Beyond this unpleasant character, this novel is unremarkable.
A slog through the bog.Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-7352-1616-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: Aug. 18, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Unrelenting, and not in a good way.
A young Navarrian woman faces even greater challenges in her second year at dragon-riding school.
Violet Sorrengail did all the normal things one would do as a first-year student at Basgiath War College: made new friends, fell in love, and survived multiple assassination attempts. She was also the first rider to ever bond with two dragons: Tairn, a powerful black dragon with a distinguished battle history, and Andarna, a baby dragon too young to carry a rider. At the end of Fourth Wing (2023), Violet and her lover, Xaden Riorson, discovered that Navarre is under attack from wyvern, evil two-legged dragons, and venin, soulless monsters that harvest energy from the ground. Navarrians had always been told that these were monsters of legend and myth, not real creatures dangerously close to breaking through Navarre’s wards and attacking civilian populations. In this overly long sequel, Violet, Xaden, and their dragons are determined to find a way to protect Navarre, despite the fact that the army and government hid the truth about these creatures. Due to the machinations of several traitorous instructors at Basgiath, Xaden and Violet are separated for most of the book—he’s stationed at a distant outpost, leaving her to handle the treacherous, cutthroat world of the war college on her own. Violet is repeatedly threatened by her new vice commandant, a brutal man who wants to silence her. Although Violet and her dragons continue to model extreme bravery, the novel feels repetitive and more than a little sloppy, leaving obvious questions about the world unanswered. The book is full of action and just as full of plot holes, including scenes that are illogical or disconnected from the main narrative. Secondary characters are ignored until a scene requires them to assist Violet or to be killed in the endless violence that plagues their school.
Unrelenting, and not in a good way.Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2023
ISBN: 9781649374172
Page Count: 640
Publisher: Red Tower
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2024
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.
On the orders of her mother, a woman goes to dragon-riding school.
Even though her mother is a general in Navarre’s army, 20-year-old Violet Sorrengail was raised by her father to follow his path as a scribe. After his death, though, Violet's mother shocks her by forcing her to enter the elite and deadly dragon rider academy at Basgiath War College. Most students die at the War College: during training sessions, at the hands of their classmates, or by the very dragons they hope to one day be paired with. From Day One, Violet is targeted by her classmates, some because they hate her mother, others because they think she’s too physically frail to succeed. She must survive a daily gauntlet of physical challenges and the deadly attacks of classmates, which she does with the help of secret knowledge handed down by her two older siblings, who'd been students there before her. Violet is at the mercy of the plot rather than being in charge of it, hurtling through one obstacle after another. As a result, the story is action-packed and fast-paced, but Violet is a strange mix of pure competence and total passivity, always managing to come out on the winning side. The book is categorized as romantasy, with Violet pulled between the comforting love she feels from her childhood best friend, Dain Aetos, and the incendiary attraction she feels for family enemy Xaden Riorson. However, the way Dain constantly undermines Violet's abilities and his lack of character development make this an unconvincing storyline. The plots and subplots aren’t well-integrated, with the first half purely focused on Violet’s training, followed by a brief detour for romance, and then a final focus on outside threats.
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.Pub Date: May 2, 2023
ISBN: 9781649374042
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Red Tower
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2024
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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