CBR18 Book 53: "Monster, Monarch, Maiden by Rae Carson

Page count: 480 pages

Audiobook length: 12 hrs 55 mins

Rating: 4 stars

This was an ARC; thank you to NetGalley, Harper Audio and Greenwillow Books. My opinions are my own. This book is on sale now.

Bria Angarsold is an innkeeper's daughter (she mentions this at seven different points in the story, in case you were likely to forget) who was kidnapped by raiders, along with her sister and several other people who were at her family's inn at the time. Bria is one of the last surviving captives when the raiders' caravan is attacked by a mysterious young man. Seriously injured, but patched up by her rescuer, Bria knows that she won't survive in the wilderness by herself. Her sister is dead, and her family's inn was burned by the raiders. She has no home to return to, so she swears herself to the service of Titus, her brooding companion, vowing to help him on his dangerous journey.

It's obvious that Titus comes from wealth, from the expensive boots he wears to the impressive war horse he rides. He is on a perilous quest, assigned by the gods themselves, chased by assassins, and while he is initially reluctant to have Bria accompany him, her magical gift (which she had always seen as rather useless) proves to be a valuable aid in the challenges they face along the way.

As far as I can tell, this is a standalone fantasy novel by Rae Carson, and I was granted ARCs of both the audiobook and e-book versions of the story. I have to admit, I was glad when I got the e-book version, as I didn't entirely like the way Bailey Carr was narrating the story. So being able to read the story with my eyeballs was preferable. 

In this fantasy world, everyone is born with a magical gift of some sort. There are powerful and impressive gifts, like healing, shapeshifting or being able to take control over and manipulate everyone around you, but also small, seemingly harmless gifts like being able to change the colour of your nails, lighting small fires, or making things cold (Bria's gift). In a family of innkeepers, being able to make sure the food stays cold is very useful, but out in the world, kidnapped by raiders, it feels rather useless to her. As it turns out, once she starts experimenting with Titus' encouragement, her freezing powers can be a powerful weapon. It also makes her a lot more resistant to cold than most others, which is great when they have to traverse an icy lake to get into a cave to retrieve an object necessary for the quest.

Bria is resilient, pragmatic, and tries very hard not to dwell on the miseries she's gone through. She mourns her sister and her home, but tries to stay focused on Titus and his god-given quest to give her life a new purpose. He needs to retrieve several magical items in order to call down a dragon on a specific date, which will take him to where he needs to be in order to represent the goddess who selected him in a trial to determine who will become a new god. Each god in this world's pantheon has a chosen representative, and some are a lot more murderous than others, determined to take out their competitors before the divine trial. So Titus and Bria have to get to a specific destination on a specific date, or Titus fails. They also have to dodge assassins and various supernatural obstacles on the way.

It is obvious that any romance between them is doomed before it begins, as Titus is not only betrothed to someone (it's not a love match), but is also possibly going to become a new god if he survives long enough to summon the dragon and complete his quest. He is never going to be able to settle down and live a quiet life with a former innkeeper's daughter who might have a promising future as an ice merchant. Nevertheless, Bria can't help but fall for the handsome, stubborn and brave Titus, and he seems to return her feelings. 

"Breathtaking adventure and swoon-worthy romance for fans of Sarah J. Maas" is one of the promises in the official blurb, and while I can absolutely vouch for the adventure part of that statement, anyone who is expecting romantasy along the lines of ACOTAR or any of Sarah J. Maas' other books will be deeply disappointed. This is a fantasy quest with two interesting young protagonists, but the romantic subplot is extremely secondary, possibly even tertiary, and it is mostly longing glances and wistful sighs, all extremely chaste. Anyone expecting a steamy romantasy is going to be very disappointed by this. Stop it with the false advertising, publishers!

Standalone fantasy is rare these days, so I hope this isn't the start of a series. I wouldn't mind reading more books set in this world, though, which proved to be fascinating as it was revealed through Bria and Titus' journey. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

#CBR9 Book 64: "Walk on Earth a Stranger" by Rae Carson

Page count: 464 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars

Leah "Lee" Westfall lives on a small farm in Georgia, trying to make ends meet with her parents. The only reason they're really managing to survive at all, is Lee's unusual ability, she can sense gold. It calls to her and is the reason her father is known in town as "Lucky". No one but her parents know about her gift, or so Lee believed. Then she comes home from town one day to discover both of her parents shot (her mother is still just barely alive, and warns Leah to be careful with her last breaths) and the sack of gold dust they had hidden under the floor boards missing.

Her neighbour, sixteen-year-old, half Native Jefferson McCauley is planning on heading west to California, as the news that gold has been found there has just been announced. He wants Lee to come with him, but she's reluctant to leave her family's farm. Then her uncle Hiram shows up, now her legal guardian, and with her gold sense, Lee can tell he's been near a lot of gold dust lately. She's suddenly all too certain who's behind her parents' murder, and once her uncle starts dropping hints, she begins to fear that her father may have told him about Lee's abilities. She regrets not going away with Jefferson, but enlists the help of a friendly shopkeeper in town, cuts her hair, dresses in men's clothing and runs away while her uncle is distracted.

Lee needs to make her way west and try to find Jefferson again, all the while staying out of her uncle's clutches. She quickly discovers that life on the road is dangerous and meets several set-backs before she manages to get a place on a caravan going towards California. Can she keep her real identity hidden with so many people around? Will anyone discover her special gold sense? Will the caravan actually survive the hard and challenging journey across the country to the gold fields of California?

I don't know exactly what I was expecting from this book, but it certainly wasn't a gritty, depressing version of Laura Ingalls Wilder's books crossed with Oregon Trail. There are SO many horrible things that happen to these people, guys. If this hadn't been the start of a trilogy, I would have seriously suspected they would all just be killed in various gruesome ways over the course of the story. Rae Carson's first trilogy, Girl of Fire and Thorns, did NOT prepare me for the level of hardship throughout this book.

With the fairly shocking beginning for poor Leah and the continuing, probably impeccably researched story, full of all sorts of misery, I can't say the book was enjoyable and it made it very difficult for me to get attached to any of the characters, as I never knew who was going to kick the figurative bucket next. I suppose I should be happy that Ms Carson didn't simplify or sugar coat what was probably a very dangerous and arduous trek for a lot of people, so desperate to get to find gold that they would risk everything, including their own lives and those of their families in search of prosperity.

Set in the late 19th Century, there were obviously a lot of less than enlightened attitudes with regards to women, "confirmed bachelors", Native Americans and persons of colour in this story. Lee has to hide her identity for much of the story, and mainly seems to be able to do it quite well for a long time. This was clearly also a time when injuries and illness were a lot more dangerous, which is partly what makes the story so harrowing. While struggling to reach the west, the band of travellers keeps getting reduced, but the ones who make it are a very tightly knit group, and I'm an absolute sucker for found family stories.

One advantage to waiting so long to read this book, is that I won't have too long to wait until the third book in the trilogy is released later this year. I'm hoping that with the difficult journey completed, the next books may be more entertaining and uplifting.

Judging a book by its cover: I'm not entirely sure what I think about this cover. I think the giant gold letters proclaiming the title are unnecessarily large. I think the cover image should have been given more prominence, instead it almost becomes an afterthought. I'm also not entirely happy with the way Leah's "gold sense" has been visually portrayed, but I guess it's hard to get across what is basically just a mental thing.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR5 Book 123. "The Bitter Kingdom" by Rae Carson

Page count: 448 pages
Rating: 4 stars

This is the third and final book in the Fire and Thorns trilogy, and as such, it's not where you want to start reading the series. The first book, The Girl of Fire and Thorns is the place to begin. This review will inevitably contain spoilers for the previous two books in the series, and will also, in part, be my review of the series as a whole.

The Bitter Kingdom starts where The Crown of Embers ended, with young queen regent Elisa's kingdom on the brink of civil war, and her Captain of the Guard (and the man she'd finally admitted that she loved and decided to marry) taken hostage by soldiers from neighbouring Invierno, who want the Godstone in her belly and are using Hector as bait to get her to follow them into their country. Accompanied by only a former freedom fighter/assassin, her lady in waiting and a failed Invierno sorcerer, Elisa needs to catch up with the soldiers, rescue Hector, figure out what is actually going on with the Invierno sorcerers, and find a way to defeat the rebellious nobles who are trying to destabilise her country and usurp her throne.

When the trilogy starts, Elisa is sixteen, chubby, innocent, naive, pampered and has lived an extremely sheltered life. In one year she is married off to ensure a political alliance, kidnapped by rebels, becomes a guerrilla freedom fighter, falls in love, sees her beloved killed in front of her, is widowed, becomes Queen Regent for her young stepson, has to fight off hordes of pesky suitors, has to try to stem the civil unrest in her country, go on a quest to a possibly mythical, magic location, locate said location, and deal with the betrayal of a long-time family retainer. Then she decides to mount an invasion and rescue mission aided by only three others, all the while knowing that she may be losing her throne to a deceitful member of her Royal Council.

She's come a very long way, and changed a huge amount over the course of the year the books are set over. Because everyone around her tried to keep her ignorant and sheltered, she's become fiercely determined not to be kept in the dark, and does all she can to educate herself about her unusual situation. While completely inexperienced at ruling at first, she develops into a good scholar, skilled tactician, brave fighter, affectionate stepmother, beloved regent, shrewd negotiator and loyal and steadfast friend. Above all, over the course of the trilogy, we see these things happen gradually. Elisa is by no means a Mary Sue who starts out perfect and talented and beloved by all. She goes though a number of hardships and is tempered by them, emerging stronger with each new challenge. She's a good role model for young readers, both male and female. She doesn't wait around for others to solve her problems, or rescue her. She saves herself and those she loves, willing to risk her own life for others.

The supporting cast is well fleshed out, with a number of entertaining individuals with strong personalities and lives of their own. The world building is also done well, with the aspects of each new society slowly revealed with a number of nuances, so that even the initially evil and ruthless-seeming Invierno being shown as just another different culture with good motivations for their hostile actions. The various religious beliefs and the accompanying magic systems are also really fascinating. The Bitter Kingdom is a good and satisfying ending to the trilogy, and I can't wait to go back and re-read all three books as a completed whole.

#CBR5 Book 6. "Crown of Embers" by Rae Carson

Page count: 416 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars

This book is the second book in the Fire and Thorns trilogy. While this review is unlikely to contain big spoilers for the previous book in the series, this book really doesn't work well on its own, and it would be better if you started at the beginning with The Girl of Fire and Thorns.

Now the widowed queen of a constantly besieged country, Elisa is doing her best to be a better ruler than her weak and cowardly former husband, but as she's still only seventeen, and not exactly experienced as a ruler, she's not having an easy job of it. The only people she can trust implicitly are her closest servants and Hector, the head of her Royal guard.

The power hungry sorcerer priests from the neighbouring country are demanding that she surrender herself to them as a willing sacrifice, or they will continue to threaten and attack her people. The political situation in her country is fraught and vulnerable with external threats and internal strife. Her Royal Council are demanding that she find a husband as quickly as possible, to prevent a possible Civil War. Too bad that the only man she really likes is Hector, who is sworn to guard her with his own life, and her older sister (the Crown Princess of another neighbouring country) is approaching for a possible marriage alliance.

After being attacked and nearly killed in her own palace, it's clear that the sorcerer priests are not Elisa's only worry. She needs to learn to control the power of the God-stone in her belly, and try to decipher the many prophecies to discover what great destiny lies in store for her. She discovers that she needs to go on a dangerous quest to the southern islands of her realm, where a great power will allegedly be available for the Chosen One who can survive the challenges of getting there.

Can she fool her Royal Council for long enough to get away, dodge the assassins out to kill her, postpone making any decisions about marriage treaties for herself or Hector, and succeed in finding the legendary zafira, which will give her power enough to take on an army of sorcerers?

The Elisa of this book is a year older, rather a lot more experienced in guerrilla warfare and somewhat wiser. She is still woefully ill-equipped to rule an entire country, especially one as politically unstable as the one she has found herself the Queen of. There are all manner of people trying to kill her, some of them are even courtiers at her own Court, possibly even members of her Royal Council, plotting to usurp her. She desperately wants to do a good job, but her self-doubt and insecurities cause her to keep making little mistakes that escalate into minor disasters.

She is forced to admit that she's in love with the head of her Royal Guard, despite the fact that an alliance between them would be political suicide. She needs to gain strength and consolidate her power, and has no choice but to set off on a dangerous journey with mostly her few loyal retainers as company. The situation Elisa is in is pretty depressing, all the way through the book, but she manages surprisingly well, all things considered. Her close friendship with her maid Mara is lovely, and the supporting cast are still very good and interestingly morally complex.

Elisa continues to be a character I enjoy reading about, and she learns a lot over the course of this book. The book ends on rather a dramatic cliffhanger, and I can't wait to see what's in store for her and her friends in the (hopefully) final book of this series.

CBR3 Book 87: "Girl of Fire and Thorns" by Rae Carson

Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Page count: 432 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Date begun: October 24th, 2011
Date finished: October 26th, 2011

Princess Elisa is married off to the king of a neighbouring country on her sixteenth birthday, in part to strengthen a military alliance. She's overweight and insecure and constantly feels inferior to her older, clever sister, and figures that the only reason she's the one marrying the king is because because she is this generation's "Chosen One". Elisa has a gemstone in her navel, a God-stone, that marks the bearer as having a great or significant task in their future. Elisa's lived a sheltered life, is nervous about being married off to a handsome man, and sent to his kingdom, far away from home. Her only comforts are food and books.

When Elisa arrives at her new home, she realizes that not only does her husband have a mistress, he's kept his new marriage and his alliance with Elisa's father a secret, even to his closest advisors. She soon discovers that, though her husband may be handsome, he's not necessarily a brave or decisive man. He neglects his son, and clearly tries to avoid confrontations, as much as possible. Elisa also discovers that nearly everyone in her new homeland knows much more about the God-stone than she, and that her sister and father, and pretty much all the people she's ever counted on and trusted, knew about the many prophecies regarding the Chosen One. Suffice to say, this doesn't make her feel any better about herself, or her murky future task.

Elisa's life changes dramatically when she is kidnapped by a small band of resistance fighters. She is taken on a long trek across the desert and held in a tiny border village, where the people are constantly ravaged by the ongoing war, without any help being sent from the king in the capital. The resistance group knows that Elisa has the God-stone, and hopes that she will be able to save them from certain death. How can Elisa, with her insecurity, book learning and inexperience, rise to the occasion and fulfill her destiny?

Girl of Fire and Thorns is the first book in what I'm assuming will be a trilogy (aren't they all these days, or longer?), but works perfectly well on its own, with a self-contained story. It's a great young adult book, as it provides a great role model for young women in Princess Elisa. While she starts out as obese and insecure, it's clear to the reader that she's a good and loyal person, and while she's hard on herself, she never wallows in self-pity for long, and she tries to make the best of the situations she finds herself in. She finds herself in a variety of dangerous situations over the course of the book, and never discovers hidden super powers, but shows incredible, realistic bravery in that she faces her challenges square on, refusing to run away or sacrifice others to save herself. Elisa is by no means perfect, but she's been raised to serve her people, and she knows that many of the bearers of the God-stone died either before or while they fulfilled their destiny, and she's determined to do her duty, even if it scares the heck out of her and may mean her death.

There's a supporting cast of great characters, too, who help fill out the story. Elisa's nurse, Ximena, is especially good. The plot has some surprising twists, and takes the "Chosen One" trope from classic fantasy in interesting directions. I will be looking forward to the sequels of this one.