DawnSinger

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this tale about royalty, a hidden child and a quest! Shae leads a quiet and carefree life with her family until she is summoned by the queen to her castle. Shae and her brother Kai ride a wherbeast and get attacked by people riding wherbeasts after they eat at an inn and sleep in a barn. Shae learns how to use a knife to defend herself even though she had never used a weapon before!
Shae learns about her family's secrets and she is pursued by a conniving musician with evil intent and his conspirators! You will have to read for yourself to find out what a wherbeast is and what happens on the quest!

I almost stopped reading the DawnSinger when the author started using strange names for everything. I understand that in a fantasy world you create, some things will indeed have strange names, but there were so many of them that without any other point of reference, I didn't know what Ms. Voigt was talking about half the time. I also thought that the lack of a little backstory for Kai would have served the reader much better. Why was he in service so long and how did he come to be chosen? The service to the high queen obviously had shaped his life, but there just wasn't enough to pull it all together for me. Shae fared a little better in this regard, and we do learn some of her backstory.

The author tried very hard to have the reader immersed in this world, but I never really connected with it. I found the writing style to be overly complicated at times and it took me out of the story. The plot had all the elements of an epic fantasy and some of the problems were resolved. However, I won't be picking up any of the next books in this series.

Shae has been called to Faeraven. The High Queen has called for Shae on her death bed, though Shae does not know why. Together with the man she thinks is her half brother, she travels to see the Queen. But in the court, she discovers many secrets. People that she thought she could trust have been keeping life-changing secrets from her. While she needs to decide who to trust, darkness pursues her. When she is sent on a dangerous quest, it becomes even more important for her to decide whom to trust- and whom to obey.

Janalyn Voigt has written a fast-paced, complex novel in DawnSinger. The characters are well developed and grow over time. The language is somewhat older. For example, "gaze upon her" is used instead of "looked at her". The author's consistency in this writing style keeps it from becoming cumbersome. I did find that there was a lot of unfamiliar vocabulary associated with this fantasy world that at times made the story hard to follow. However, as there is a dictionary at the end of the book this does not need to be a problem.

This book is not a stand-alone story- the ending left me wanting to find the next book in the series.

I would rate DawnSinger a four out of five stars. I received a complimentary copy from Pelican Book Group in exchange for an unbiased review.

This is first in series and I look forward to the rest - a Christian fantasy series for adults and older teens - classic fantasy setting with monarchs and quests.