With no other choice left to her, our protagonist is forced to flee back to her homeland and reunite with her estranged blood kin. Worse, it has been ruled that the king died of poisoning, and being the botanical expert, Elanna is the number one suspect.
And unfortunately, his heir Princess Loyce has never accepted Elanna, always ridiculing her for her Caerisian heritage. In fact, she even has her future all planned out once she comes of age, the king will send her off to study botany, where she will hone her gift of working with plants.īut then one day, King Antoine sickens and dies. She has not seen her real parents since the night of the party, and Eren has become the only place she feels at home. For all that she is an outsider and the daughter of a known traitor, Elanna has been treated well by King Antoine, whom she regards and loves as a father. To ensure no more attempted uprisings, Elanna’s parents are banished back to their ancestral home of Caeris, while Elanna herself is seized as a hostage, to be raised in the king’s household in Eren.įourteen years pass. Meanwhile, King Antoine and the rest of his royal guards are storming the house downstairs, putting an end to her father’s rebellion. Our protagonist Elanna Valtai, five years old at this point, watches as her nurse is murdered in front of her eyes. Things get off to a rather intense start, with the prologue opening on the scene of an interrupted dinner party.
The book encompasses a lot of the elements I love, including a courageous heroine, an evocative magic system tied to the living earth, and a complex world built upon the political alliances and animosities between various kingdoms. There are just certain types of stories, while not entirely groundbreaking or new to the genre, that are just irresistible to me, and this is one of them. The Waking Land is a gorgeous new fantasy novel from debut author Callie Bates, and it was on my wishlist long before I had the opportunity to read it. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Thanks to Del Rey Books for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.
0 kommentar(er)
