Skip to main content

Spirits and Swords!

Onyx and Ivory, by Mindee Arnett, was a complete spur of the moment buy at the bookstore and I am forever patting myself on the back because this YA fantasy novel is a hit! The cover caught my attention on the shelf, but the synopsis-- a "traitor's" daughter at a point of finding out secrets and rekindling love with an unsuspecting partner? Count me in!

Following Kate's story was simple and riveting from the get-co. Magic influenced Kate from birth and she spends her adolescence hiding it -- a final rule and request from her father before he was executed by the crown. The crown being Kate's supposed love -- Price Corwin. Corwin undergoes his own growing pains and turmoil as he's set up against his older brother to, literally, contend for the future of the crown! Between personal discovery and growth both individuals deal with, magic has a stronghold influence on the storyline, primarily between those who fear it and those who wield it. Sinister forces are at work and weaving webs underneath both the hierarchy and commonfolk. Kate, Corwin, and gathered forces defend and discover what is at hand with their supposed enemies. In turn, this leads to the foreseeable sequel: Shadow & Flame! A sequel that jumps into forging ahead with battle that should unravel the aforementioned unpromising fate for Kate, Corwin, the kingdoms and land!

Arnett's writing is littered with detail and thoroughly easy to comprehend when reading. Both character description and development is done beautifully. Location settings and travel scenes bask in attention to character/reader relationship (connections between personal experiences). I also didn't mind the jump between Kate's and Corwin's points of views. I believe it did the story justice as far as pacing and story-arc!

All in all, I'd highly recommend this novel to anyone interested in a new YA fantasy worldbuilding creation! I so look forward to diving into the sequel (I'm even starting it tonight!)

:) 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

An All Too Familiar House

          Not the usual suspense-thriller synopsis I've become accustomed to when reading Lisa Jewell's novels, however, I was entranced by this novel from the get-co. The House We Grew Up In centers around a mother and her four children over the span of a decade. The mother, Lorelei, has an extensive hobby of collecting items that harbor a memory of time spent with her loved ones. Each and every memory-- meaning each and every item she just happens to come across. Lorelei is in fact a hoarder and it does not get better with time. It gets worse. In addition to Lorelei's intense and overbearing lifestyle, her children forego their relationship with their mother and each other in order to gain a sense of normalcy within their individual lives. One of Lorelei's children committed suicide at a ripe age of sixteen and her other three were simultaneously impacted by the act tremendously. Her other son took to finding a thrilling lifestyle in all the wrong places...
Post a Comment
Read more

Four-Walled Nightmare

I will always and forever say this - Lisa Jewell is the QUEEN of the suspense/thriller genre. I'm sure most who read her would agree with me in comparing her and/or referencing her written ability in crafting a phenomenal read to that of the infamous Agatha Christie in her time. Jewell's 2019 debut novel centers around a young woman by the name of Libby Jones, a competent individual with a safe, bright future ahead. Until, she receives a letter shortly after her 25th birthday informing her of a family inheritance worth a fairly decent price and then some . Jones is introduced to readers as the main character to follow, but other characters soon take stage in a plot-twisting novel where family ties don't always hold true with faith, love, and blood. Jewell has this astonishing ability to craft the perfect chapter, whether it be mere attention to detail, length of pages or strategic craftsmanship of paragraph and dialogue portions leaving the reader wanting more - causing th...
Post a Comment
Read more

All Around the Ferris Wheel

  Megan Miranda's novel, "All The Missing Girls", was a thriller/suspense novel I was happy to inhale from my TBR pile - literally (two days of reading straight through). The storyline follows Nicolette Farrell's life, from ten years prior to drastically moving out of her hometown and present day. I believe anyone can relate when Nic's character spends time reminiscing about how things were during high school vs how much things can change when becoming adults. But, what happens when something you did ten years ago starts to repeat itself - almost too much? It makes you wonder, are we really any different than how we used to be? Or have we just gotten better at masking it? Miranda does an awesome job, in my opinion, by introducing this story in backwards timeline sectioning. Nic's return is broken up into two/three weeks worth of a story (with longer portions towards the end of the novel) but Miranda works backwards in showing the jump between past and present...
Post a Comment
Read more