Book Lovers,

This was an interesting read. I didn't love it and I didn't hate it, it is somewhere in the middle!

A fantasy debut novel, unique with a first love romance tangle with lies and politics and magic!

The book was written so well but there was a few serious issues for me, Too much inner dialog, it keeps the reader from truly fully investing by telling us but not showing us.... It is also too much to have people do things that seem completely unreasonable and unrealistic, unless you are 10 and just make silly choices... Other than that this book was amazing, because it was not the cookie cutter plot. It had enough momentum to push the reader through. It was a bit hard to get through the last part of the book for me, as it seemed to not really hold my attention, but I did complete the book. I am 46, maybe it is just for a younger set. I would put age group at about 8 to 16. This is the correct age group for this book, but I did enjoy it, and the author really has a lot of talent, as this is just her first book and you can see it! I will look for more from her, and to watch her grow as an author will be a true pleasure. Let her know I am personally rooting for her, and to not give up! As soon as I can review on Amazon I will do so!

This has been compared with Uprooted by Naomi Novik as well as author Sarah J. Maas. I liked this book, however, I enjoyed the other two authors stories far more. This for me had a feeling of paint by numbers. Step one, step two, etc. It didn't flow seamlessly. Also, due to sexual content, I wouldn't recommend for those under "new adult" age. That is my personal opinion. Plenty of magic, political intrigue, fighting action and romance. This was enjoyable but didn't capture my heart.

This novel was an interesting read. The author writes in first person point of view for the main character, who has a destiny she is not ready to accept. This novel contains romance, magic, betrayal, hope, action, and adventure.
Lady Elanna Valtai is taken as a child from her home in Caeris due to her father plotting to put the "false-king" on the throne and begin a rebellion. El begins to see the king of Eren as a father, since he treats her better than his own daughter. However, appearances can be deceiving and people see only what they want to see. Eren has been abusing its people for too long. When the king is murdered, El is blamed and she must flee. However, she does not want to return to Caeris. She was brainwashed by the king and his tutors, which makes her appear rather obtuse at times.
She meets Jahan, a man that represents another kingdom, who can get the black ships to aid with the rebellion. He also discovers El's secret ability about magic that she has desperately tried to hid since people believe magic is evil. However, El cannot trust Jahan, for she does not know where his true allegiance lies. Jahan has his own magical abilities that he also hides to avoid the witch hunters.
When El returns to Caeris, she is torn between her past and her destiny. She needs to use her magic to save her people, but she does not understand it completely and needs to look into the past to discover how to save the people of Caeris and Eren. However, the new queen of Eren wants El dead. El will need to work with new allies in order to save the land. However, they are betrayers, even though they hide among friends. El and others know what they need to fight for. However, can they succeed even though they are completely outmatched?

First, let me say that I adore the cover. It's beautiful and serves the story well.
Bates' debut novel is a fantasy rife with magic, love, rebellion, and friendships. It's fairly fast-paced.
My only quibble with the book is that I would have loved more character development, especially some of the secondary characters.
The main character is very young, and this book will easily be a YA crossover.
Fantasy lovers, this one is for you.

Lady Elanna is just what the land ordered to bring her people back to freedom and out of tyranny. Problem is that she fights her calling and has been indoctrinated into believing that the King who raised her was a fair and just leader. Once she returns to her homeland, everything she's known since age five begins to crumble and she learns that not everything is as it appeared. Soon she is faced with the decision to stand with her adopted land of Eren or fight with her people and for the freedom of Caeris. On top of all that, her blood and present awaken the gods and spirits of old and bind her to the land. This is a riveting read and a great epic fantasy. Will definitely purchase for my library for my fantasy-loving patrons. It's also a great crossover read for older YAs.

****Please note that this review contains open spoilers that are protected as such on the Goodreads platform.****

At the outset, let me say that this book has a lot going for it, from its beautiful cover to an interesting magical world, to a heroine that is likable both at the start and at the finish. The first person narrative, however, limits the perspectives we have of this world to the paradigm of a teenage girl and that was a source of plot and character problems for me. Elanna is a teenage hostage, gently held by King Antoine of Eren since she was age five, as a means to force good behavior on Elanna's rebellious father. Raised outside her native duchy she forgets, as she loses touch with her land, her magical heritage. When the king is murdered, and Elanna falsely accused, she makes a run for it and finds out that the world she had been raised in by King Antoine was one based on lies. She runs to her now foreign-to-her homeland and struggles to adjust. I found this aspect of the book quite promising- her reconnection with her land, her heritage, and with parents who are very different from what she remembered or assumed. It was ripe territory for dramatic development. But the path to fulfill that promise wasn't clear. The inconsistent character development of secondary characters was a frustration (more on that below).

As I mentioned, Elanna, the protagonist, is quite likable. She kind, smart, and manages herself well through a series of reversals of fortune and a surprise betrayal (show spoiler:) [by her own mother, who, surprisingly, Elanna still loves, tries to understand and doesn't plan to kill or get revenge from. (Kudos on not following a bad parent trope here!)]. (hide spoiler) But this is where the plot muddies for me. None of the secondary characters seem to have problems with these betrayals, perceived or real, and are just willing to take this teenage girl's word that everything is 'cool,' so to speak. There is no caution generated around two important characters, when they appear to have done the Caerisian rebels great wrong. Everything is forgiven quickly, easily and multiple times. The plot, which goes from here to there to here to there in terms of action, wasn't smoothly developed. I think a better editorial hand might have been beneficial here. The same is true of the world building. I wanted a better sense of Eren and the Ereni people to understand the plight of the Caerisians. All I got is that they were awful and a pack of liars and murderers, except for Guerin, Hensey and Victoire. I'm not even one hundred percent sure why Paladis was so involved in Eren and Caeris affairs. (I do thank the publisher for the map at the start of the book, by the way. It's a helpful addition.)

Beyond the plot and world building, we have the issue of character development. A number of the relationships don't ring true due to lack of development. For instance, Sophy (the girl Elanna's parents basically adopted after Elanna is taken as a hostage by King Antoine) and Elanna have little time to explore their mutual situations. Sophy views Elanna's parents as her own and truly loves them, and Elanna feels what seems to be only fleeting resentment or jealousy over the life this young woman led in what should have been Elanna's place in this duchy. Sophy, who behaves as if she is a person of importance, has her own secrets to keep and we see none of her own resentments of a returned Elanna and what this may mean for her own situation because the book is told from Elanna's first person perspective and Elanna doesn't spend much time analysing Sophy's role as a seeming placeholder for the Duke and Duchess's hostage daughter.

(show spoiler:)
[One of the great missed opportunities of the book was the character of Loyce and her motivations for having her own father murdered. Elanna has lived among the royalty of Eren but doesn't see them accurately and we don't understand much in depth about the relationship between Loyce, Elanna and Antoine. Did Antoine love Elanna more than his own daughter, Loyce? It's implied but we don't have a fully grounded understanding of why that's the case. Obviously, Elanna is a much nicer person and we get that, but why is Loyce so horrible? I would also add that the paper thin quality of character development of Finn also bothered me. He's a "hale fellow, well met" and his father sent him off to recover a throne with a clever sorcerer whose relationship with Finn we still, even at the end, don't fully understand. Here is a character that could have made us feel much more about his abrupt denouement in the story, even if Jahan had revealed to Elanna, upon Finn's passing, the origins of their bonds of attachment. Jahan's failure to protect Finn, after his multiple flips and diversions, is barely dealt with and that failure hangs like a red flag to me because of his ability to throw aside one commitment (Finn) for another (Elanna) so quickly. It's recognized, albeit briefly, but nothing comes of this recognition. Has Jahan learned his lesson? What would this failing mean for Elanna?

Likewise, Denis Falconier and even Elanna's father are rendered almost colorless, all bad or good and ineffectual. It was as if all the secondary character development went into the twice-turncoat character of Lord Gilbert, at the expense of some of the other secondary characters. Bates also spent time developing Victoire as the spirit of resistance and that character is left a loose end, after having been one of Elanna's best friends.

I also have a lot of thoughts about the way the relationship between Elanna and Jahan was developed. This relationship, for all its seeming fire, was stilted and often almost childish when Elanna would interact directly with Jahan. While I can say kudos to the author for not making this a battle about marriage between these two, it was awkward to have them discussing marriage long before there was any obvious affection and clear emotional attachment beyond the normal sexual attraction between a cute guy and a pretty girl. The relationship didn't feel a "real" as I wanted it to, for a long time. There were enough things to be uncertain about in various characters' motivations in this book, and after the initial revelation that Jahan was sort of playing both sides against the middle, their relationship should have been more clear cut so that we are not left wondering as the various other unclear relationships play out.]
(hide spoiler)

All in all, this is a first novel and writers learn as they go. The book would have been stronger with a smoother, better-outlined plot and stronger character development. I feel as if the editor and publisher may not have wanted the page count to go above a certain threshold and that development of the plot and characters may have suffered because of it. In any case, this book reminded me of Patty Briggs' first novel, Masques, which she later rewrote and expanded, in its show of promise in the high fantasy genre. Bates similarly is an author who has a lot of promise. I'd definitely pick up her next book to give it a try.

Great story that kept me up all night. Want more!!

A new fantasy series for YA or older readers, The Walking Lands had quite the unique and interesting magic system! I'd love to learn more about that, and I'm looking forward to the next two books in the trilogy. (But worry not, this one didn't end on a cliffhanger. I hate it when books do that.)

While I did enjoy the story, for some people the first person POV might be an issue. I do wish the author had shown more and told less.

Recommended for people who enjoy fantasy stories and don't mind a subplot of romance.

I received a copy of this from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This was pitched on review sites as perfect for fans of Sarah J. Maas, which meant I was definitely wanted to read it. However, upon finishing the book, I don't know that I'd suggest it to someone antsy after the last Throne of Glass book.

Elanna's been held hostage by a neighboring king for 14 years and has internalized everything they've taught her about her homeland. When the king is killed, Elanna is framed for it and must escape certain death. That escape leads her to the leaders of her homeland rebellion, the people desperate to free Caeris. At first, Elanna's skeptical of their cause, but when she can no longer deny her own magic, she becomes dedicated to the cause. And because it's YA fantasy, there's a romance.

The good: I really like the concept of Caeris as a land-- semi-sentient, guarded, the shifts. I liked that Elanna was, of all things, a botanist, which ties in well to her role in Caeris.

The bad: I had a hard time getting into this, and at times, it felt SO LONG and disjointed. I couldn't work up to caring about the love interest or what would happen to Elanna, because of COURSE she'd come out all right in the end, and she wasn't engaging enough for me as a character. This felt very much like a first book, but I'll still read any sequels.

The premise of the book was well thought out, and the book itself was well-written. The problem that I had with it is that I didn't like the main character at all. I thought she was impulsive, not in a good way, and made some of the poorest choices that I have seen a character make. I didn't find that she grew throughout the story but remained rather static. I really hated that, because I felt that the secondary characters were extremely well-drawn and did grow.

The Waking Lands book was a lovely fantasy novel with great story writing. Elanna, our main character, was portrayed wonderfully and her struggle to find where she belongs was carefully written. She had so much to deal with and the way it all was portrayed was well done, I do wish there was a little more in the world building. The author knew the background and the world really well, but would love to know more about things in this world, maybe more will be shared at another time. A nice read and enjoyable!

I really really liked this book. The only reason I won't give it 5 stars is that it gets a wee bit confusing in the middle- some of the explanations for why things happen and how magic works in this world aren't fully developed. In short, I've read better (and more believable) magic systems but I did enjoy reading this book :)

with the amount of hype i was seeing around this book i expected it to be a lot better. parts of the world building were really good but most of the characters, their interactions with one another and their motivations were far from believable. the love story alone was so ridiculous - it felt forced.

the main character's obliviousness to EVERYTHING was distressing. I know Stockholm syndrome is a real thing. and I know being kidnapped and held hostage at a young age would mess someone up but most of that was unaddressed which felt like a cop out. even though I'm tired of series, this could have definitely done with a sequel. the end was rushed, everything was rushed, it just was only okay.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via netgalley.

The Waking Land promises to be the start of a fun and exciting fantasy series. With complex world-building and a gift for growing characters and ideas, Bates introduces to a world of magic, political intrigue, and revolution. This is a page-turner you won't want to put down.

This is from an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher - and thank them for an ebook copy which was nicely formatted! Far too often the ebook is a second thought after the print version, and the formatting suffers, but that was not the case here.

That's where the joy ended though, because then I had to read it. You know you're in trouble with a novel when you're only ten percent in and you're asking yourself how much more you really have to read before you can DNF it and say you gave it a fair chance!
The novel started with a prologue, a thing which I never read. They're antiquated and contribute literally nothing to a story except to kill a few more trees in the print version. Maybe authors who write prologues and epilogues hate trees? The thing is that this whole business of Elanna being kidnapped and held hostage made zero sense, except in that it did herald a lot of other plot points which made no sense either! Maybe I should have read the prologue and then DNF'd it at that point?

The thing is that if I'd known going into this, that it was to be a first person YA trilogy full of cliché and trope, I would never have asked to read it, but Net Galley offered not a whisper. Such books ought to be required to carry a warning sticker. From the blurb, it had sounded like it would be an engrossing and entertaining read. Sic Transit Gloria Blurbi!

I'm very rarely a fan of first person, and unfortunately that voice is chronically over-used in YA stories. I cannot for the life of me understand why so many writers herd themselves like sheep into such a constricting voice, and one which simultaneously makes their character look so dysfunctionally self-important that it is, unless handled well, thoroughly nauseating to read.

Nor are YA trilogies any more welcome in my reading list. They're typically unimaginative, rambling, trope-filled, derivative, and bloated by their very nature. I long for a YA writer who is willing to step outside the trope and think outside the box, but they are a very rare and much-treasured commodity these days, as everyone else rushes-in like lambs to the dip, where more angelic bovines are far too wise to tread. It's all in pursuit of the almighty dollar, and it's sad; truly sad.

This novel initially had intrigued me because of the Earth magic. It's what attracted me most of all, but we were largely denied any exploration of that in the portion I read, and what we did get was accidental or incidental. This was one of the problems. Elanna has this magic, and has known of it since childhood, but she has suppressed it.

To be fair, there are reasons for this, but the fact that she's scared of it and never explores it (except for one too-brief incident we're shown right at the beginning of the novel) made me dislike her. What kind of a dullard do you have to be to have such delightful and powerful magic, and not want to at least tinker with it in private, and learn something about it? The fact that Elanna didn't, not only made her inauthentic, it also made her thoroughly boring and cowardly. There's a huge difference between teasing your readers, and denying them a story that feels real.

Elanna Valtai (often called Lady Elanna for reasons which are not clear - and which felt employed only to give her a cachet she has not earned) was taken hostage at gunpoint (pistol-point more accurately) at the tender age of five, by a conquering king who, over the last fourteen years, she has grown to love as a father. This made little sense, but Elanna is not the sharpest knife in the drawer. She was more like a spork with blunted tines, and consequently neither one thing nor the other. She's fascinated by botany and so, when the king is poisoned, she becomes the prime suspect with improbable rapidity, and is forced to flee.

To me, this made zero sense. The one-dimensionally hateful and cardboard princess, who is now queen, has no reason whatsoever to fear Elanna. She considers her too low to even take seriously, so why bother framing her? We're offered no honest motivation for this at all. At this point the story was no different from the trope high-school story of the girl who is bullied.

Elanna is paradoxically presented as a charming and easy-going woman who everyone likes on the one hand, and on the other, a crudely rustic figure of fun who has no place in court and who is disliked by everyone, having no friends at all! Again, it made no sense that she would have literally no one. It felt like the author was following a rigid plot without actually giving any thought to how realistic or practical this world was that she was creating. If the king is so great, then why doesn't he put a stop to the bullying? The fact that Elanna never once questions this is yet another example of how stupid she truly is.

As I mentioned, despite being repeatedly given the appellation 'Lady', Elanna is never shown to be one. I have no problem with a character being portrayed as having emotions and sensitivity. I think we need more male characters like that in fact, but as usual in YA, the author overdoes this with their main character, so instead of showing her to be a reasonably empathetic young woman raised to be nobility, not a princess, but at least with some spine, she comes across as a weak, limp, and as a weepy, clueless little girl. It was pathetic to read about her.

Once she realizes she's going to be blamed for the king's death, and instead of taking control of her destiny and facing down the charges, which would have actually made for a much more engaging story, Elanna betrays her entire upbringing, and runs away like a scared little girl. Worse than this, she's manhandled by her love interest (and yes, it was ham-fistedly and loudly telegraphed as soon as he appeared in the story), so immediately, all control over her life is removed, and she becomes the toy and plaything of a complete oaf of a man named, inevitably "Lord", as in 'Lord and Master' no doubt as we see her weakly complying with his every demand.

Not only that, she takes the usual abusive and utterly sick YA route of falling for this patronizing and condescending dick like she's an air-headed thirteen-year-old. This is entirely the wrong message to send to young girls, and the fact that so many female YA authors do this so consistently is as scary as it is dangerous. People who talk about a rape culture seem ignorant of this facet of it, in which women are taught, in story after story, that's it's not only okay for a guy to take control over your life, but that you should go along with it mindlessly, and even fall in love with him no matter how he treats you; then we look askance at those women who end-up in abusive relationships.

The saddest thing about this is that all the hots she has for this man take place when she is quite literally fleeing for her life. What kind of a pathetic, misguided specimen do you have to be, to be having hot flashes for a guy when your very life in in peril? It made zero sense and cheapened the whole thing. It was so badly done that it ruined all hope of an intelligent or realistic romantic relationship.

For me, it did nothing but keep reminding me that I was reading a poorly written YA novel into which romance had been jammed for no other reason than that the author and/or publisher determined it was a requirement rather than that it might naturally and organically grow out of a realistic relationship. It suggests that the author either doesn't trust her characters, or she doesn't trust her writing skills, and it sends the wrong message yet again: that all women are Disney princesses who are useless without a man to be a father figure as well as (sickly!) a lover. It says that no young woman can stand on her own two feet - she always needs a studly guy to validate her and shore her up. I call horseshit on that one.

I've read this story so many times that it turns my stomach. The author might change character names, and set them in a new locale, and even give then magic, but it's the same story. They're exactly the same characters going through exactly the same empty motions over and over again. Can YA authors not come up with something new for once? Really? It's pathetic how unimaginative and uninventive YA authors are. Here's a choice quote: "Don’t they realize I’m a scholar as well as a lady of fashion?" What?! Where the hell did that come from?

There are a few, a precious few, a band of sisters, out there who honestly do get it, and who write great stories. They get that this isn't the Victorian era, and that weepy, lovelorn princesses are not only obnoxious, but they are antiquated and inappropriate. They do these stories right: making them fresh and original, but the rest of those authors are doing nothing short of writing cookie-cutter "Harlequin" romances for teens, chasing the easy buck, and that's all there is to it. This is one such story, it saddens me to report. And it could have been so much better.

So, while fleeing on horseback with a group of riders, the wind whistling through her hair, Elanna conducts a whispered conversation with her BFF, who is pretentiously named Victoire. It's described as a "whisper-shout", yet everyone seems able to hear it over the wind and the pounding horse's hooves! At one point they're told, like naughty children talking in the classroom: "That is enough, all of you! No more talk. Do you want to put us all in danger?" Seriously? They're racing through the dead of night on horses with hooves slamming into the ground, and this idiot is worried someone might overhear them talking? Who, exactly, is listening? This is another example of the story not being thought through.

The sad truth is that a lot of the writing leaves a heck of a lot to be desired. We get that Elanna is afflicted deeply with the wilts and the vapors over J-Han, We don't need to be gobsmacked every few paragraphs with yet another account of how she's is hanging on his every breath and touch, and the heat of his body. It's painfully obvious who the murderer is, so there's no mystery there. We know Elanna is going to win in the end and get jiggy with J-Han, so what's the point of reading this again?

Instadore how do I hate thee? Let me count the brays! Well, for one, she has to share a horse with him, yet there's not a word of his sweating or stinking of horses. Seriously? Just how pathetic do you want her to appear to us? Elanna doesn't notice any of his smells, which were rife in that era, even in a fantasy land, but she does notice mundane things like the color scheme in the house she visits - things which seem very odd to have been taken note of by a scared woman who has never paid attention to furniture before, and who is fleeing pursuers who want to put her through a sham trial and then kill her. At the same time, for a botanist, she notices almost nothing of nature! Again, it's not thought through.

Another oddity is that Elanna seems to have perfect, if selective, recall! Despite being gone since she was a very young child, she had no problem understanding her native language, which she last heard - and spoke - when she was merely five years old. We read, "Hugh has switched into speaking Caerisian, which the Count of Ganz evidently understands, and my ears are too tired to deny they know the words, as well." Now I won't try to argue that she would have forgotten her native tongue completely, but at the very least, she would have been extremely rusty in it, and not know many of the words spoken by adults, since she never learned those as a child, yet she appears to have a completely unencumbered grasp of it.

Again, this is not thought through. It's especially bad when it's compared with the time when Elanna goes back to her childhood home. She recalls nothing of that at all! So we're expected to believe that she has a perfect (and adult!) grasp of a language she has neither spoken nor heard in well over a decade since she was barely beyond being a toddler, yet she recalls literally nothing of her childhood home? It's simply not credible.

Her respite at the house is short, because they are quickly - and unaccountably - discovered by the palace guard. How the guards knew exactly where they were goes unexplained, but even that isn't as inexplicable as why Elanna, who was desperate to escape her initial captors with her friend, fails to take Victoire with her! She decides to find the "lay of the land" by herself, first. It's just a house! What's to know? They need to get out, get a couple of horses, and leave.

It's really that simple, yet this limp dishrag of a friend leaves Victoire behind, so that when the palace guard arrives, Victoire is abandoned upstairs. Elanna whines about getting her out, but instead of growing a pair and insisting on rescuing her best friend, which would have made for some great drama, and would have given Elanna some street cred, she's portrayed as spinelessly complying with Lord Almighty J-Han's dick-tates. Once again what we're shown is that she's his property now, not her own. Once again this is entirely the wrong message to send. I truly detested Elanna by this point in the story.

While fleeing for her life, Elanna observes, "I won't be made to use my magic - the magic that puts me in mortal danger" Excuse me? She's already in mortal danger! She's already been declared a witch and a murderer, and had that broadcast across the land. How could she be in any more danger? This is exactly what I mean about Elanna being a profoundly stupid woman, and the last thing I need to read is one more YA novel extolling the 'virtues' of stupidity, in a female main character.

The sad thing is that it never stops in this novel! At one point Elanna reveals that "I know how terrifying it is to walk into a room full of strangers." This is a woman who was raised in a position of nobility, taught to expect deference from everyone. Never before have we been given any indication that she suffers terrors at walking into a room, and now suddenly she knows? Again it makes no sense.

The root problem here is that this novel offers nothing new, which begs the question as to why it was even written! The romance is cliché, the bullying is cliché, the main character is a walking, YA female lead, cliché. At one point very early in the novel, shortly after the studly J-Han arrives to take Elanna into his possession, I read this: "He swings me around, making the world spin, and then we go inside together, my cold hand tucked into his big warm one" so immediately the process of infantilization has begun right there, and this main character is now no more than a weak child in the hands of a trope, strong, manly man. This is one of the biggest problems with YA - the girl becomes a toy for the boy, a plaything, a piece of property, to do with as he wishes, and the girl goes right along with it. Elanna is one of the most stupid, vacuous, compliantly empty characters I've ever encountered. The more I read about her the less I wanted to read about her.

So when did I quite reading exactly? It was right on the cusp of thirty percent in, when I read of a character's eyes that they were "flecked with gold." I cannot even number the times I've read this exact phrase in a YA novel. What the obsession is with gold-flecks in a character's eyes completely escape me, but it's been done ten trillion times if it's been done once, and if I'd read this any earlier, I probably would have quit right then. Admittedly, the phrase is usually employed to describe the male love interest of the female MC, and in this case it wasn't, but does that make it okay to copy? No! That description needs to be summarily banned from YA literature.

It should be needless to say at this point, but I will clarify it anyway: I cannot recommend this story, because it's really just a clone of far too many others that I have also been unable to recommend for the same reasons. I don't care if she gets better as the trilogy goes along. I really don't, because for me she's already a failure, and if it takes her three books to grow a pair, then that's two books too long. The problem with trilogies is that the first book typically only ever is a prologue, and I don't read prologues. Novels like this one have been steadily nudging me to the point where I'm ready to forsake reading YA stories altogether, which would be sad, because once in a while there's a real gem to be found among the base rock.

Waking Land with its divided loyalties, earth magic, mysterious lands, and political intrigue, is a book with a unique blend of fantasy and medieval life and court intrigue. Who can Lady Elanna trust, the kingdom who kidnapped her and raised her like a daughter and then betrayed her; or her native country who allowed her to be kidnagpped and did nothing to rescue her?

An epic fantasy with all the elements for a perfect read.......an individual and unique heroine, magic, well developed and colorful characters and a brilliant story!

This was a pretty enchanting and unique storyline in the fantasy genre with plenty of action, magic, love as well as an interesting introspective on human behavior.

The story is pretty intense with interesting characters she really tried to flesh out as the novel progressed making it one of those books you would want to reread in the future.

The pace was a little bit up and down so at times it seemed to drag then suddenly pick up at rollercoaster speed and there wasn’t enough detail in her world building as I felt there were still some holes when it came to the religious aspects of her story. The little bit of negative didn’t take away from the fact that ultimately this was a satisfying fantasy adventure with a strong female protagonist.

What I liked: The premise of this book is fascinating, the words are well chosen and beautiful, the characters likable and authentic. The idea of a strong woman protagonist who wakes the land is compelling and her conflicting emotions and thoughts, realistic for a 19 year old. I enjoyed the interplay between her and the other characters in the book, and the way she has a hard time connecting with her parents after a being abducted and kept away from them for 14 years.

What I didn't like: There's lots to be sad about in this book--war, death, violence. And also, a totally gratuituous sex scene. Bleh. I want my YA to be appropriate for all YA audiences...I wouldn't want my kids to read this one.