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Friday 22 April 2011

Review: FLESH AND SPIRIT

Flesh And Spirit by Carol Berg
Book 1 of the Lighthouse Duet

Genre: epic fantasy

About Flesh And Spirit:
In a land torn apart by civil war, pestilence, and shaky alliances, a man branded a traitor ends up in a place he never expected...

The rebellious son of a long line of pureblood cartographers and diviners, Valen has spent most of his life trying to escape what society - and his family - have ordained for him. His own mother has predicted that he will meet his doom in water, blood, and ice. Her divination seems fulfilled when a comrade abandons Valen in a rainy wilderness half-dead, addicted to an enchantment that converts pain to pleasure, and possessing only a stolen book of maps.

Offered sanctuary in a nearby monastery, Valen discovers that his book - rumored to lead men into the realm of angels - gains him entry into a world of secret societies, doomsayers, monks, princes, and madmen, all seeking to unlock the mystery of a coming dark age. To his dismay, Valen must face what he fled so long ago, for the key to Navronne's doom is buried in half-forgotten myth and the secrets of his own past...
Source: Info in the About Flesh And Spirit was taken from the author's website at http://www.sff.net/people/carolberg/lighthouse.html on 20/03/2011.

Review:
I picked up this book because I've read this author's work before and she has one of the most compelling, colorful and wonderful "voice" I've ever encountered. She has a way of stringing words together which paints a vivid world in my head and seemingly makes the world of Valen come to life in technicolor for me. Character development is so good that I feel for Valen. Such that I got depressed during that really low moment in Valen's lowly existence about two thirds into the book. However this book started off very slow that I actually contemplated abandoning it and picking up another. Luckily I haven't got anything really juicy lined-up to read, so I continued trudging on with this book. Past chapter 5 or 6, the pace did pick up and it gets quicker as it reaches the end. But here is the real kicker, it ended in a whooping cliffhanger. So my advice is, don't start reading this book if you haven't got both books of the Lighthouse doulogy in your possession where you can immediately pick up the second book as soon as you hit the cliffhanger ending.

Story telling quality = 4.5
Character development = 5
Story itself = 3
Ending = 1
World building = 4.5
Cover art = 4
Pace = 3.5

Overall Rating: 3.5 out of 5 cherries


FTC Disclosure: This book was borrowed from the library.

Book 2 In The Lighthouse Duet:

2 comments:

Blodeuedd said...

Thanks for the warning about the ending, I am not good with cliffhangers, not at all!

Tales of Whimsy said...

I love books with a good voice.

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