The Indie Book Review: Catalyst The Passage of Hellsfire

There are, maybe, seven basic fantasy plots. The readers know this. They know that just about every fantasy they open will be a variation on one or another beloved theme. This is not a shock to them. So, when a fantasy reader says a plot is predictable, they don't mean: I've seen a variation on this before (because we all have) they mean the author didn't do a good job making an old plot interesting, setting it in a well crafted world, or giving us fantastic characters to adventure along with.

Catalyst: The Passage of Hellsfire, was predictable. It's not bad, but it's also not really engaging.  Hellsfire, yes, that's the name of the main character, reads like a hybrid of Luke Skywalker and Harry Potter. He's a boy with a destiny and a special power. He's also bit flat. Not obnoxious, but not fully rounded in any meaningful way either.

In fact, the whole book reads like a hybrid of Star Wars, Harry Potter, and Lord of the Rings.  The Hero is young, stupid, and The One Whose Coming Was Foretold. The Wizard is old and wise, and takes him under his wing for training. The Princess is beautiful, spunky, handy with a sword, but still in need of rescuing. The Good King is being taken advantage of by his Evil Adviser. The Evil Adviser has plans to find the magical plot device artifact and use it to take over the world. You've read this story before. I've read this story before, and both of us turned each page with bated breath when it was populated with fantastic characters in an expertly built world.

And, alas, this is not an expertly built world, either. Quick example: The Wizard is explaining how magic works in their world, how each person has six sorts of mana (Okay, how many of you immediately flashed into gamer mode there? It gets worse.) and each mana has a different color: white for life magic, black for death magic, red for fire, blue for air, blue-green for water, green for earth. Sigh. I played that game, I don't need to read it.

On top of that, Catalyst sorely needed a proof-reader. The punctuation is rough. Missing/wrong words pop up at least once or twice a chapter. It was often enough, and bad enough, to toss me out of the story on several occasions. Wonky descriptions showed up just as often. Another example: We finally get to a combat scene, and it's going well, I'm liking it, but then one of the fighters uses his "sword like a snake." Now, I get that not every sentence in a book should be read literally, but even on a figurative level this doesn't make much sense. Snakes don't use swords. And if you were holding a snake by the tail, and attacking with it, you'd be using it like a whip, not a sword. I think, from context, he meant something along the lines of: his sword flicked quickly, like the tongue of a snake... but he didn't write that, and using the sword like a snake really tossed me out of the story to figure out what was going on. (My immediate mental image of the character holding the sword in his mouth, arms and legs pressed to his sides, as he wriggled on the ground, made absolutely no sense.)

It also needed a beta reader. In the above scene, Hellsfire, who's been warned to use his magic sparingly and not tell people he's a wizard, uses his magic to burn his way out of a net, uses his magic to blow the head off an ogre, hands a stabilizing potion to a wounded man, and then thinks that he shouldn't mention he's a magic user. He wouldn't want to tip his new companions off. Apparently his companions are massively stupid and didn't notice the fire flashing about, or even though he's describing everything in glowing red flames, the magic is somehow, unbeknownst to us, invisible. Between that and the snake sword, I had a really hard time with that scene. And it's not the only one.

So, as I said, Hellsfire isn't terrible. It's rough. It's very familiar. By halfway through I was skimming along, hoping to find something to get my attention. At three quarters of the way through, I still hadn't found anything that kept my attention for more than five minutes at a time. My guess is, if you've read very little fantasy, or are quite young (The Catalyst is technically a YA book, but I'd be more interested in aiming it at the six-to-eight-year-old market. You'd have to read it to them, but I think they'd like it.) this book might be a lot of fun. But it wasn't doing it for me. I gave up without finishing it.

The Indie Book Review: The Death of Torberta Torchin

I don't usually review YA books.  About one in seven of the submissions I get are YA, and usually, before I even get to the sample, the general plot line has turned me off.  See, I didn't enjoy being a kid. I got done with it as soon as I could. So, getting to spend more time in high school or junior high isn't my idea of fun. Add in two of the main YA tropes, angst for the sake of angst, and brainless first love, and well, it's just really not my genre.

So, The Death of Torberta Turchin just about got tossed out of the to be read list without getting much of a hearing. But...  Well, the cover is pretty cool, and very much not the usual YA cover art. So I read the back. No angst for the sake of angst. No mention of romance. Hmmm... I began reading the sample.

The Death of Torberta Turchin opens with a fourteen-year-old girl, Torberta, who lives in a boarding school for psychologically disturbed kids, discussing the balancing act the students go through with the doctor. St. Christopher's is a pretty sweet gig, and if you want to stay there you've got to walk a tightrope. Look like you're making too much progress, ie: get better, and you get sent home. Not sufficiently crazy, ie: faking it, and you get sent home. Act too crazy, and they put you on drugs and send you to a higher security place. So, if you want to stay at St. Christopher's you've got to be just disturbed enough to make your family want you away, but not so crazy you're a danger to the world around you.

Reading those first few pages was like reading the first bit of Ender's Game. I knew this book involved a character I'd sympathize with and want to spend time with.

Torberta is in St. Christopher's because she hears voices. The voices say they're ghosts. And, while she can hear them without anyone else hearing them, she has to respond out loud. Talking to voices no one else can hear is embarrassing and troubling to a family that loves you dearly, but Torberta is an orphan raised by people who barely tolerate her. They packed her off as soon as they could.

I love the fact that is book is paranormal, but there is some genuine doubt as to what Torberta is hearing. One of the things that often puts me off paranormal stories is that they're supposed to be set in the real world, but everyone acts like the paranormal aspects are just no big deal. So, even though Torberta is pretty sure what she's hearing really are ghosts, she does have moments of doubt, and to me that's a very realistic, very welcome touch.

I love a good romance, that's not a secret. But in many YA novels a good romance is nowhere to be seen. Sad, abusive, obsessive, unhealthy romances are scattered about like glitter at a drag convention. Romances that make no sense (The world is about to end, monsters are eating my family, but all I can think about is how much I lurve the hot boy who may or may not be the cause of the monsters...) at all are even more common. The sorts of relationships you think might actually go somewhere are usually pretty scarce. My sense is we see so many of these 'relationships' because they add easy drama, and because many writers have a hard time writing girls without defining them by how they relate to boys.

There's no romance in Torberta, and I was thrilled to see it. It's deeply satisfying to see a story where the focus of a fourteen-year-old girl's life isn't some boy. Even more welcome to see a story where romance isn't some sort of magical elixir that makes all the problems go away.

The angst level is minimal, and what angst Torberta has, she certainly deserves. Her parents are dead, the family that's taking care of her considers her a massive embarrassment, and everyone, even her friends at St. Christopher's, think she's insane because she hears voices. This is a girl who deserves a little self-pity. And while she does get a little angsty, she never gets whiny. (Have I mentioned that I love this character? I do, I really do!)

My only quibble with this story was at the end. Let me make it clear, this is just a personal preference, Mawhiny set up the ending properly. She laid all the groundwork, so the ending is a surprise, but not from out in left field. But it's a tad rushed and a little too much coincidence all in one place. Torberta talking to ghosts was a lot easier for me to believe than the timing of the actual incident that killed her.

Still, on the whole I really liked this book and loved Torberta. I'd say it's appropriate reading for anyone over the age of ten. (Maybe eight if you've got a good reader able to handle ideas on mental issues.) The main character is a girl, but there's nothing particularly girly about the book, so it shouldn't put boys off. Like Harry Potter and Ender, Torberta will appeal to both sexes.

This is a solid four star book, and I highly recommend it to anyone who loved Ender or girl characters with their heads on straight.

Indie Book Review: For the Sake of the Future

And, after a rather long delay, the Indie Book Review is back! (I know all three of you were waiting with baited breath for the next installment.) Today we're going to look at For the Sake of the Future.

One of the online communities of writers I hang out at has been bouncing around the idea of whether or not you should hold onto an idea if you don't think you're a good enough writer to tackle it yet. Now, I'm a big fan of not waiting. I think you'll lose a lot of what you want with the idea if you just set it on the shelf. At the same time, I don't think you should publish that work until you are a good enough writer to do it proper justice.

Why is this relevant? For the Sake of the Future is a great idea. I wish I had come up with the plot for this story, it's so good. Val Panesar unfortunately is not a good enough writer to do it justice, yet.

The plot: The Big Bad wants to change the world. He's gotten a hold of eight people right after they died, The Undying, and offered them the chance to go back in time and rewrite the world, to make human existence 'meaningful' by going to war and making sure the 'right' people die. Apparently his main characters are a little stupid, and a little shook up from just having died, so they all agree. They start changing the past. From there we get twists, turns, crosses, double crosses, paradoxes, and the fun that time travel allows.

I really wish I had thought of this plot. And that I was or knew a really good graphic artist. For the Sake of the Future would have made an incredible graphic novel. There's action galore, and the main character, Neelam Lochan, is a huge manga fan. Starting this plot off in a fairly realistic drawing style and slowly morphing it into a manga style would have worked really well.

I liked the characters. Neelam is engaging and pleasant. Greg, Sean, and Marid, back up characters, are all interesting. As I mentioned above, the characters are a little dull, but unlike a lot of writers who indicate their characters are the smartest thing ever, and then they start doing stupid things, Panesar never tries to sell us on the idea that his characters are brilliant. They're regular guys (sort of, this would be one of the twists mentioned above) dropped into an extraordinary circumstance, and it takes them a while to realize this is not a good plan.

So, that's the good points.

The bad part is that this book desperately needed both an editor and a proofreader.

An editor was necessary to reign in the point of view hopping, chronology hopping, and chop about a quarter of the story out. Now, I don't hate head hopping in a book, as long as it's not done mid-scene. One point of view per scene takes care of the job nicely.  And I understand that parts of this book are supposed to be confusing, but randomly hopping about in the chronology, swapping POVs only makes the confusion worse. The idea is to write the story so that the confusion of the characters shines through, not to write the story so that the reader is scratching her head going, "What just happened there?" On top of that this is a long (and trust me, I write long books, I know long.) book, and it doesn't need to be quite that long.

A proofreader needed to go through and fix up the grammar, typos, and formatting issues. Now, I'm not going to be winning any awards for Grammarian of the Year. On top of that, I don't much care about grammar mistakes that don't jump off the page. But there were enough issues with For the Sake of the Future that I was irked by them.

Basically it's a rough draft.  It's a rough draft of something that could become a good book. On Goodreads two stars means the book was okay, one star means I didn't like it. Neither of those options really work. This book isn't okay; it's not well enough written to get an okay. But I did like it. I'd really like to see what it might look like after Panesar takes a few years to really study how a story hangs together and gets a good editor. So, no stars for For the Sake of the Future, just a review.

The Fantasy Sage Speaks: The Contract

So, last week I started talking about the bits and pieces I've picked up on how to keep readers happy.  Since I'm not all that much closer to finishing the current book on the review list (For the Sake of the Future.  It's big. I'm liking it. Hopefully review next week!) I shall now lay down the wisdom on tip number two: The Contract.

You're writing a book.  You are the master of your own world. Inside the realm of your word processor you are a GOD! You are accountable to no one but your own whims and desires. You can make everything precisely the way you like it, take the tale anywhere, make your characters do anything! BWAHAHAHAHAHA!

Hmmm... Well, okay, this is true, sort of. Or I should say, if you strive to be a good (and by good I mean able to satisfy readers) writer, you stuff the part of your mind that's cackling like an evil scientist into the closet, lock it in there, and throw away the key.

See, there is an unspoken, unwritten contract between you and the reader.  You set the tone of this contract by how you begin your story. By the time you've introduced all the characters and laid out the major plot points your readers expect you to follow through on those plot points and keep those characters in character. This is not to say you can't introduce new plot points or that your characters can't change. You can do both, but you have to satisfy the contract with your readers, which means finishing up those original points and doing the work necessary to take the reader along with the character when they change, if you want to keep happy readers.

In the last Fantasy Sage column I wrote about plot, and how JK Rowling did a fantastic job with building her plot so that by the time the last book came out she had a ravening horde of readers ready to jump over the corpses of their friends just to lay hands on the book. (Or maybe that was just me...*whistles innocently*)

Anyway, what she didn't do was fulfill the contract she set with her readers.  By the end of Half Blood Prince, the readers were expecting a good versus evil showdown wrapped around a high quest fantasy and a final clash between Harry and Voldie.  She did give us the final clash: a muddy,convoluted, confusing, and anti-climactic final showdown, but it was indeed there.  The high quest fantasy, in the hands of even a marginally competent fantasy writer (which I think as of that point in time we all assumed she was) should have been an absolute blast. Instead she gave us moping and camping, filled with bad writing, and worse logic. As for the good versus evil showdown, it's just not there. In an effort to make sure there's no clear good or evil, she purposely makes sure that Harry's casting the only magic ever defined as Dark Arts by the middle of the book.

From my own take on the book, and from several critical reviews I agreed with, I'd have to say the issue was by the time Rowling got to Deathly Hallows she wanted to write one thing (a treatise on the acceptance of the inevitability of death) instead of what she told us she was going to write (a good versus evil battle to the end).  Her part of the contract was not fulfilled, and, though kids still love Harry Potter, she lost a lot of the grown-ups with that book.

Another great example of I-promised-to-write-you-something-and-decided-to-write-something-else-altogether is The His Dark Materials series by Philip Pullman. The first two books were great, but by the time he got 'round to book three he forgot he'd set up an epic clash of faith versus science and decided that introducing a completely new plot point involving unicycling mutant elephants (at least that's how I pictured them) was in order.

Result: unhappy readers.

So my author friends, how do we work with this? How do we not make the same mistakes? Well, if you took the advice of the first column and figured out your plot before you started writing (or at the very least, before you published), you've probably got half the battle taken care of.

Keep that plot in line. If you go astray, and you certainly may decide to do so, give it a really, really careful look, especially if you've already published books in the series. And if you do go astray, wrap up the loose points, no matter what. And do them proper justice. Just because you've gotten bored with the your original set up does not mean your readers have. They want to see the action.  Single biggest complaint about The Amber Spyglass: the big battle everyone was waiting for happens off-screen.

Here's the other advantage of keeping your plot in line: if you do a good job plot wrangling, you're much less likely to find yourself in a situation where you have to dumb down your characters, make them start doing things they wouldn't ordinarily do, or mucking about with them in any other way.  Readers will often forgive a wonky plot. They rarely forgive having a favorite character lobotomized and turned into an idiot puppet by the author.  The most recent example I can think of for this is Dragons of the Hourglass Mage, where for reasons that I can only assume rhyme with honey, Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman decided to resurrect Raistlin, yet again, took the story back twenty years, and tried to fill in a part of Dragons of Spring Dawning that had been kept silent.

And they bombed at it. If, when they wrote Spring Dawning, they had any idea of how Raistlin got to where he was, it was pretty obvious that by the time they wrote Hourglass Mage they had forgotten it. So they started from scratch, apparently deciding that the fans wanted a new, softer, less-sarcastic version of Rasitlin, and they killed his character.

Once again this resulted in unhappy fans.

So, be careful with your set up, be aware of the promises you are making your readers, and fulfill them.  If you're lucky enough to have fans who review your books and discuss them, pay attention to what your fans are expecting. Sure, you don't have to give them what they want, but if you know what they expect, what they think you've promised to tell them, you can do a much better job of keeping them happy.

If you find yourself in love with a totally cool idea, write it down, play with it, but if it doesn't fulfill your contract to your readers, put it in the drawer for the next series. There's always time to write new books with new adventures and new promises later on down the line. Once again, it's much easier to get a happy fan to go and buy that new book and new adventure than it is to woo one back later who you annoyed when you didn't tell him the story you said you would.

Other Fantasy Sage Posts: Magic, Plot, Power Balance

The Fantasy Sage Speaks: Plot

In addition to being a writer, I'm also a reader.  (Yes, I know you are all deeply shocked, what with the book reviews and all.)  However, I'm also a reader of book reviews.  I hang out on discussion boards where people talk about books. Over the years I feel like I've sucked up some points about what readers, fantasy readers especially, like, what makes them keep coming back, and what annoys them. Which, since I'm nowhere near finishing the next book for review, I, the newly christened Fantasy Sage, shall share with you.

So, here it is, in all it's glory, the first tip:  If you want the sort of fans that are begging for your next book to come out, make sure you've got a set plot arc. 

What do I mean by this?  Fans like knowing there is a set beginning, middle, and end to the story.  Harry Potter and the..., Twilight, Harry Dresden, and Game of Thrones: the thing these books all have in common, besides legions of adoring fans, is the author set up an overarching plot, then wrote each installment in a way that furthered that plot, but also opened up more questions about what would come next.  None of these stories are/were written with the I'll-just-wing-it-and-see-where-the-characters-take-me method.

I know a lot of authors like to sort of just go with it, write whatever comes to mind, and keep the story going forever. But, if you read reviews of The Wheel of Time, Anita Blake Vampire Hunter, or The Southern Vampire Mysteries, you'll notice that many of the bad ones center on a theme of the author has lost the plot, that the later books don't have the same heart, magic, feel, ect... of the first few.

If you'll allow me a bit of comparison... Fans were lining up in droves, spending hours debating what would happen and how for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. By the time we got to that last book all the main players were in place, the epic battle ready to start, and a new quest set to begin. Many of the old threads had been wrapped up or almost wrapped up. The high quest for the Horcruxes and the final Harry V. Voldie fight was the promised end of the series. No matter what you thought of how J.K. Rowling handled Deathly Hallows, the set up for it had fans salivating over copies of the last book.  Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was the highest selling opening of a book, ever.

Now, we're two books away from the end of the Sookie Sackhouse (Southern Vampire Mysteries/True Blood) books.  If I understand how the series worked, originally it was a three book deal, then a ten book deal, and now a twelve book deal.  And it shows.  The first three were very solid. They were mysteries, with a decent twist on a pretty basic arc. Then it was a ten book deal, and Harris got lost. 'Round about book seven it became pretty clear that Harris didn't have a larger story she was trying to tell, and worse, she had forgotten she was a mystery writer using fantasy tropes, not a fantasy writer using mysteries to build tension. She lost control of her plot.  By book ten, where everything should have come to a fairly natural end, she was resurrecting dead plot points in an effort to keep it going for two more books.  Unless she's a vastly better writer than we've seen in the last few books, the likelihood is the only question left by the time we get to book twelve is who Sookie ends up with.  I know, having read the first ten, I've got no real interest in what happens in eleven, and I'm fairly sure I can skip it without too much damage in my ability to understand twelve.  And if you read the negative reviews of the Southern Vampire Mysteries, you'll see I'm not the only one who feels this way.

So, how can we as fantasy writers take advantage of this? Plan your story arc!  Or more precisely, know when and where your story ends, and then end it!  We aren't serial mystery writers. (They play by a different set of rules.) Our readers want complete, or at least completable, story lines.  They want to anticipate what comes next.  They want clues, foreshadowing, the ability to look back and feel clever because they caught the clues and had figured out what was coming next.

If you know where your story is going, you can use foreshadowing, parallels, and symbolism to the fullest.  You can build the necessary foundation so you're not whipping out McGuffins or Balognium (Thanks, Red Hen) when you've written yourself into a corner. (If you've got your plot properly wrangled, you aren't writing yourself into corners in the first place.) You can write each novel so that you reveal necessary information and leave some questions dangling to get your reader to come back for the next story.  And that's what readers want.  That's how writing careers are made.   It is vastly easier to get someone to read your next book than it is to get someone to find you in the first place, so make sure that first book hooks them on your story.

Now, this isn't to say you can't use the I'll-wing-it-and-let-the-characters-lead-wherever technique while you are writing, but, if that's what you're going to do, don't publish until you've finished the whole tale. The thing to bear in mind is there's a huge difference between writing a story and publishing a story. When you are writing, you're doing it just for you. When you publish, you are making a promise to tell your reader a certain sort of story (more on this in the next post: The Contract). So, write however you like, but don't publish until you can give your readers the set story arc they desire.

So sayeth the Fantasy Sage.  Now, go write! ;)

Other Fantasy Sage Posts: Magic, Contract, Power Balance

Guest Review: Nevermore

Today on To Publish or Not To, we've got a guest reviewer.  Cambria Herbert, author of the upcoming Before.  She's treating us to a review of Nevermore.


Title: Nevermore

Author: Kelly Creagh

Publisher: Atheneum, August 31, 2010

Genre: Young Adult paranormal/fantasy

Format: Paperback, hardback, Ebook

ISBN: 1442402008

Isobel is a cheerleader, perky and blond, who is paired with a dark haired “goth” guy for an English assignment. At first she is horrified that she has to work with him. Even more horrified when she tries to talk to him and he is cold and aloof. Then he writes his phone number on her hand in purple ink.

That one act seemed to have sealed their fate.

Even long after Isobel washed away the purple, she still felt the mark. And the more she gets to know Varen, the more drawn into his world she becomes. Unfortunately for Varen that puts a target on his back. Isobel’s possessive (and big fat jerk) boyfriend decided to make Varen’s life hell.

It doesn’t get any better when Isobel breaks up with the jerk. But Varen and Isobel are drawn to one another, despite the worlds they come from. One day, Isobel peaks inside the journal Varen carries with him and finds herself staring into a dream world that he has created.

When strange things begin to happen and things appear that only Isobel can see her world begins to unravel…

And she begins to realize that the power of a dream and written word are far more than she could ever have known. As Varen is slowly consumed by nightmares of his making Isobel must find a way to save him…or lose him forever.

I had heard some good things about this book before I picked it up. The cover art is stunning and I loved the purple writing (which I loved even more after I put the book down). I didn’t know what this book was about when I began reading, I figured I would read and be surprised as I went. I will admit, I really was expecting a vampire book.

I was wrong. There are no vamps in this book. (Yes, a relief to many of you who are sick of the vampire craze). It was a plot like no other I have read. It is an original idea that I could tell the author put a lot of thought and time into.

I really enjoyed this book for that reason. It took me into a whole new world to explore, with characters that were new. Okay, mainly Varen was new to me. The whole cheerleader and football player thing has been done before, but that’s okay, they were still good characters. Anyway, I liked Varen because I thought it was cool that a not so “OMG, that guy is soo hot” guy caught the eye of a “She is so hot” cheerleader”. A lot of the YA books that I read are outcast girl gets hot guy not the other way around. So props to the author for that.

I will say Varen didn’t have me swooning over him, but I did like him. He was a likable character, once given the chance to get to know him. I liked the juxtaposition of him being a goth and also working at a ice cream shop and spooning up flavors like pineapple. He doesn’t seem like a pineapple kind of guy to me. He also drove a cool car.

Nevermore is a long book (over 500 pages), which I like, because it really gave me time to enjoy the book and get into the story. Although, about half way through I started getting antsy to know what the story was, what the book was all about. Up to that point it had mostly been about how Isobel and Varen grew closer and how her ex, Brad, bullied Varen.

The one thing that seemed to bother me was that I felt like I didn’t really know what the book was about. It seemed that Varen held all the answers and he never gave Isobel any. It bothered me. I was reading and reading waiting for his explanations that never came. Now, another character in the book explained a lot of things, and some things Isobel was left to figure out on her own…which I can see how that might be good, because as a reader I really felt like Isobel, identified with her, because I was trying to figure it out alongside her. On the other hand, as a reader, I want to know! I want to discover things, things that maybe even the heroine doesn’t know that way I can gasp then await for his/her reaction upon discovering what was really going on.

In the end I knew what the book was about, I knew what Varen’s “ability” was (for lack of a better term) but I never got to hear his side of the story. If I had been Isobel I would really be angry. Here she is in love with a guy who has one hell of a hobby that she got drug into. A little explanation please??

And to be honest, some things still feel left unexplained, left unsaid.

Yes, there is another book to come out in 2012. Yes, by the end of Nevermore you have a clear picture of what the next book will be about, but still I wanted to know more.

Will I read the next book? Yes. For sure. It is a good story line, unique and I want to know what happens. I am hoping those answers that I look for will be given in book two.

I recommend this book to anyone who likes YA paranormal or fantasy and maybe wants something different, something without vampires and werewolves (why anyone wouldn’t want a werewolf- I will never know).

So there you have it. My opinion.

This review is written by Cambria Hebert, author of the upcoming novella Before.  If' you'd like to learn more about Cambria and her other writings, head over to http://www.cambriahebert.com/.

Indie Book Review: A Heart In Sun and Shadow

I'd like to make a confession. Previous to reading this book I had never had a genuine WTF?!? moment. Oh, I've run into things that made absolutely no sense to me.  I'd had experiences where, when talking about them later, I described them as a WTF moment.  But, previous to reading this book, I had never, ever run into something where upon reading it, I actually said, out loud, What the fuck?

Then I read A Heart In Sun and Shadow.

Imagine if you will: I'm sitting in a very crowded Panera, enjoying a lunch of French Onion soup and a baguette.  It's so busy I'm sharing my table with a very sweet old lady.  We've had a bit of nice conversation about my netbook, and how I read books on it to review.  I'm happily reading along, not a single clue that this bomb is coming at me, and then I get to the part where the book turns upside down. Then: What the fuck? And, I say it, out loud.  I didn't realize I had done it until the very sweet old lady begs my pardon.  I blush, swallow my tongue, apologize, and then explain what I just read.  I get the sense she didn't disagree with my assessment, even if she wasn't a fan of my language.

Before I hit the WTF moment, the review I had been writing in my head looked something like this: A Heart in Sun and Shadow is a sweet, gentle romance set in an ancient Wales that never was.  It's the tale of Aine, a wisewoman who falls in love with cursed twin brothers and sets off to free them.  Her adventures deepen her love of them and tests her resolve.  I was planning on writing about how I wasn't entirely sure if this was a YA book or not.  How the writing was a easy and a bit shallow, but the love story is unconventional enough that it's not an easy YA fit.  I was planning on discussing fantasy romance and the tradition of the lovers quest.

That's what I had been planning on writing. 

The sweet and gentle nature of this story is part of why the WTF moment was so shocking.  The fact that it's not even remotely foreshadowed is another reason.

Now, I'm going to tread into major spoiler territory here.  Aine is a wisewoman.  Think of her as a traveling witch/healer.  Her entire code of ethics is help when and where you can and do no harm.  She hunts down the Fairy that cursed her lovers.  Upon finding her, Seren, the Fairy, sends Aine on a series of increasingly difficult tasks in order to collect the tidbits necessary to break the enchantment.  On her travels Aine gets an iron blade that can kill Fey folk, and she learns that she can break a curse by killing the person who cast it.  She also learns that Seren is bound to her grove, and cannot leave it for long periods of time.

She returns to Seren, blade among her things, and allows Seren sends her on one last task.  She has to collect the tears of a tree.  The only way to make the tree cry is to kill it's children.  No, not baby trees.  Child sprites dancing about in the forest.  Child sprites that heal her wounds.  Child sprites that invite her to dance with her.  Imagine three perfect magical symbols of innocence.

So, here's the moment of truth.  Murder the kiddies, collect the tears, give them to the Lady that cursed her lovers, and hope that she really does free them.  (And hope it is, because none of us are certain if Seren is on the up and up.)  Kill the Lady, free her lovers, but if she does that she cannot leave the Fey realm for any extended length of time.  Or go home, tell her loves she tried, but couldn't do it, and live with them.

So, I'm expecting her to kill the Lady, tell her boys what happened, and the three of them live happily ever after in the realm of the Fey.  I'm expecting this because it's in character.  I'm expecting this because the moral framework Aine embraces would lead her in this direction.  Which is why, when she murders the sleeping child sprites, I said, "What the fuck?" out loud.

Sloppy moral thinking is my number one pet peeve in a book.  Breaking character is a close runner up.  This one nailed both.  It's not like there was a gradual, creeping acceptance of moral compromise here.  It's not like she's slowly inching toward this decision.  It's not like she's in an absolute frothing rage when she does it.  She didn't just suddenly find out the children killed her mother or something like that.  She's dancing with them. They get tired and go to sleep. While they slumber, she decides dead fairy kids are worth her getting to go back to her boys for a bit of happily ever after, so she slits their throats.

She bought her happiness with three child corpses.

And at that point I lost any sympathy or interest in Aine.  I finished the book.  There was only 20% of it left, but I was deeply tempted to just put it down.  The hope that there would be some sort of justice or comeuppance or something kept me reading.  It's not there.

Aine and one of the twins turn out to be utterly despicable.  This is not a cute and sweet little romance.  These are deeply greedy people, willing to destroy anyone around them to secure their own happiness.  And they get to ride off into the sunset of happily ever after.  Yeah, maybe in real life you can step over the corpses of the innocent to a life of joy, but part of why people read fiction is because they want some sort of justice.  This was an infuriating and deeply unsatisfying read, all the more so because the first 80% of it is just fine.  A little light maybe, but the story works, is interesting, and fun to read.  Then it suddenly goes way off the rails and I was left wanting to smack Aine upside the head with a two by four.

On Goodreads one star means did not like it.  I'll leave it there.  Though I hated what the characters did and became, most of the book is soundly written, so I can't say I hated the book.  But I really didn't like it.