Thursday, October 02, 2014

2014 book 233

Sandra Waugh's Lark Rising
I almost didn't read this book because the description begins "Lark has foreseen two things—she will fall for a young man with sage green eyes, and he will kill her" which is a) way too melodramatic, and b) so obviously cribbing from the Raven Cycle. BUT it's also completely inaccurate! Well, I mean, it's accurate, but Lark sees a lot of things, and those particular things are not super relevant in the grand scheme of things (the romance is a THING here, but not really the main thing). Also, Lark seems to misinterpret her visions at least occasionally (and when she does, it's just a stupid roadblock to the romance that she takes way too long to reveal, my pet peeve! Less annoying miscommunication/unnecessary angst that can be cleared up with one conversation please, authors).

Ugh, here I am talking ONLY about the (mildly annoying) romance, when the world-building here is so interesting! Lark is a seer, and finds out she's one of four mystical guardians of the realm (she's the guardian of Life, and has super awesome communicating-with-animal powers, among other things) and has to get back some stolen amulets from the bad guys or whatever. Who cares, there is a really great horse and a hilarious gnome livening things up! There are weird monsters and her village is in danger! Etc. This is apparently the first of a series, and I will probably check out the others in the hope that the other guardians are less distracted by their love interests. B/B+.

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