5 stars There are some books for which 5 stars is insufficient. This is one of those books. I know I shouldn’t be surprised because I’ve yet to read a mediocre book from Sarah Cradit, yet I find myself blown away by this story. Sarah has crafted an epic world that is complex and realistic with a collection of complicated and sympathetic characters, and a few serious villains. She’s not afraid to sacrifice some of those characters to further the story, whether through physical/psychological trauma or even death, knowing that the story becomes richer with pain. Indeed, I find it amazing that I am so saddened by the death of one fictional character in particular. Although it needed to happen, that doesn’t make it easier to bear. There are so many different characters and so many threads to this story at the beginning, that I wondered whether I’d be able to keep up and remember the cast. I read through the list of characters and wondered whether I could possibly commit them to memory. I couldn’t, but the story is told in such a way that it was never difficult to figure out who was who and what was happening. Once or twice, I looked back to check on a name, but for the most part, the story flowed in such a way that it never became confusing. The story flows with a pace that is exactly right to build tension without torturing the reader. Breaks between scenes, to highlight what other characters are experiencing at the same time, are smooth transitions that propel the reader forward. While breaks might otherwise cause the reader to become impatient to follow the current thread, every character journey was equally compelling so when one character was left to follow another, I found myself eagerly continuing in the direction I was led. Of course, I wanted to find out what happened next to every character, but somehow Sarah managed to navigate my need to know everything by guiding me at her pace and revealing what I needed to know at the appropriate moments. The story was so compelling, I never had a chance to wonder about another character because I was so engrossed in whatever was happening at that moment. And then, when the story moved on to the next character, I became engrossed in that. Sarah Cradit is a master storyteller with an imagination that makes me envious. She creates imagery that is palpable and evokes a multitude of emotions with apparent ease. She is a wordsmith, at times stating universal knowledge in ways that seem original and new, like this one: “Every man and woman alive is possessed of insecurities that make sense only to them.” And again, though not original, I loved the wording of this: “The years grow shorter as you grow older.” Some phrases were brief, yet so rich in detail, that they must be noted because they conveyed exactly what was necessary. For example, in the prison the “nondescript meal” is described: “Truth was, it smelled as good as it looked and tasted worse.” At one point, Jesse turned to look behind himself to make sure everything is okay. “Esmerelda, for once, had done as she was asked. If there was any strong indication something was amiss, it was her easy obedience.” And I loved this: “Eoghan yawned, but it was a feigned gesture, a strange contortion in the face of someone who had never actually watched someone do it. A desperate attempt to be rid of the moment.” There is a vivid and heartbreaking description of the sorrow felt by a mother missing a child, a mother who doesn’t wish to share that sorrow with anyone else: “...tears she could not cry in the presence of anyone else leapt from her eyes, blossoming into stains on what was left of the vellum. The great, heaving sorrow clawing its way from the center of her chest burst forth and she sounded it into the room that had been vacant for far too long now.” It was phrases like these that made me feel the pain and loss of the characters, as well as the hope. This is book one; there is more to come. Thankfully, it is not a cliffhanger, although I will be anxiously awaiting book two. And might I add, this is exactly the sort of book that should be adapted into a movie or TV series. October 14, 2020
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Elizabeth J ConnorWriter. Editor. Proofreader. Archives
September 2022
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