Helpful Score: 5
Excellent. Entirely wonderful. Absorbing. Fantastic.
Beautifully written, engaging, richly textured, one of those books that transports you to its universe and leaves you reluctant to turn the pages knowing that it will end all too soon. I can't recommend this book highly enough!
Beautifully written, engaging, richly textured, one of those books that transports you to its universe and leaves you reluctant to turn the pages knowing that it will end all too soon. I can't recommend this book highly enough!
Helpful Score: 2
One of my top 3-most-memorable books ever read. Incredibly rich detail, imagery, emotional content, character, dialogue. Excellent!! I read the hardback from a library years ago which had a map in the flyleaf. Hopefully the paperback has this map. It helps place the action because a lot of travel is involved.
Book desrcription:
Maia - a simple but instinctively brave and generous girl whose deeds will become legend... who will be celebrated as well for her ravishing beauty, which she alone understands is both a blessing and a curse.
Maia - growing up as eldest daughter in a poor fisherman's family in a remote corner of the mythical Beklan Empire, leading a quiet, sheltered life (helping with the younger children, mending her stepfather's nets, swimming in the waters of Lake Serrelind)... until one day, the victim of a horrifying act of deceit, she finds herself en route to Bekla itself, to be sold as a concubine, completely cut off from her family and her past, friendless except for the young black woman, Occula, also on her way into slavery.
It is Occula - a foreigner, a violent and cunning sorceress - who saves Maia, instructs and protects her, preparing her to deal with her fate. Together, sold to a powerful Beklan nobleman, they are introduced to a world of luxury and depravity, of dazzling and seductive pleasures, and are enmeshed in a web of fierce political intrigue as they spend their days and nights in the company of Bekla's richest, most influential, most ruthless and ambitious citizens.
And when the empire itself - suddenly in political and military convulsion - becomes imperiled, it is Maia alone who can prevent its destruction. At a moment of grave crisis she risks her life - as well as her future with the young soldier she has fallen deeply in love with - to save the Beklan army. She becomes a national heroine, famous throughout the Empire.... And yet she herself remains caught up in danger and despair..
Book desrcription:
Maia - a simple but instinctively brave and generous girl whose deeds will become legend... who will be celebrated as well for her ravishing beauty, which she alone understands is both a blessing and a curse.
Maia - growing up as eldest daughter in a poor fisherman's family in a remote corner of the mythical Beklan Empire, leading a quiet, sheltered life (helping with the younger children, mending her stepfather's nets, swimming in the waters of Lake Serrelind)... until one day, the victim of a horrifying act of deceit, she finds herself en route to Bekla itself, to be sold as a concubine, completely cut off from her family and her past, friendless except for the young black woman, Occula, also on her way into slavery.
It is Occula - a foreigner, a violent and cunning sorceress - who saves Maia, instructs and protects her, preparing her to deal with her fate. Together, sold to a powerful Beklan nobleman, they are introduced to a world of luxury and depravity, of dazzling and seductive pleasures, and are enmeshed in a web of fierce political intrigue as they spend their days and nights in the company of Bekla's richest, most influential, most ruthless and ambitious citizens.
And when the empire itself - suddenly in political and military convulsion - becomes imperiled, it is Maia alone who can prevent its destruction. At a moment of grave crisis she risks her life - as well as her future with the young soldier she has fallen deeply in love with - to save the Beklan army. She becomes a national heroine, famous throughout the Empire.... And yet she herself remains caught up in danger and despair..
Helpful Score: 1
1200+ pages of nothing. I have read some amazing fantasy "epics" (Blade of Tyshalle), and this is certainly thick enough to be an "epic," but there is no substance. I am not impressed by 5 pages describing every detail of various sculptures, and the main character was too shallow to carry the book. Boring and a total waste of my time.
