The waking land /
Material type: TextPublisher: New York : Del Rey, 2017Description: 388 pagesContent type:- text
- unmediated
- volume
- 9780425284025
- 0425284026
- 813/.6 23
- PS3602.A8555 W35 2017
- FIC009020 | FIC009000 | FIC002000
Item type | Current library | Home library | Collection | Call number | Copy number | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Standard Loan | Hayden Library Adult Fiction | Hayden Library | Book | BATES (Browse shelf(Opens below)) | 1 | Available | 50610020864414 |
Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
In the lush and magical tradition of Naomi Novik's award-winning Uprooted comes this riveting debut from brilliant young writer Callie Bates--whose boundless imagination places her among the finest authors of fantasy fiction, including Sarah J. Maas and Sabaa Tahir.
Lady Elanna is fiercely devoted to the king who raised her like a daughter. But when he dies under mysterious circumstances, Elanna is accused of his murder--and must flee for her life.
Returning to the homeland of magical legends she has forsaken, Elanna is forced to reckon with her despised, estranged father, branded a traitor long ago. Feeling a strange, deep connection to the natural world, she also must face the truth about the forces she has always denied or disdained as superstition--powers that suddenly stir within her.
But an all-too-human threat is drawing near, determined to exact vengeance. Now Elanna has no choice but to lead a rebellion against the kingdom to which she once gave her allegiance. Trapped between divided loyalties, she must summon the courage to confront a destiny that could tear her apart.
Don't miss any of Callie Bates's magical Waking Land trilogy:
THE WAKING LAND * THE MEMORY OF FIRE * THE SOUL OF POWER
Praise for The Waking Land
"Callie Bates has written an exciting and involving first book, and she is clearly a writer of real talent." --Terry Brooks
"A heartbreaking, enchanting, edge-of-the-seat read that held me captive from start to finish!" --Tamora Pierce
" The Waking Land is all about rising to challenges, and it succeeds wonderfully." --Charlaine Harris
"A simmering tale of magic that builds to a raging inferno, and hits like a cross between Brandon Sanderson and Pierce Brown." --Scott Sigler
"This superior novel blends passionate romance and sweeping magic. . . . Bates has a delicate, precise touch with human and superhuman relationships." --Publishers Weekly
"A wonderfully stunning debut . . . Bates' clear, captivating, imaginative storytelling and vivid, distinctive characters will cause readers to soak up every word." --RT Book Reviews
"A young girl is kidnapped by the king to punish her father's rebellion against him. Years later, she returns home a fugitive, while grappling with a repressed magic that could, if mastered, make her the most powerful person in two kingdoms"--
Excerpt provided by Syndetics
Reviews provided by Syndetics
Library Journal Review
DEBUT Elanna always knew she served as a hostage to guarantee the good behavior of her family, who opposed the rulers of Eren after they conquered her homeland of Caeris. Comfortable in her cage-like existence, she's grown to love King Antoine, who treated her as a daughter and allowed her to indulge her love of plants. When the king is poisoned and she's accused of murder, Elanna goes on the run. With allies willing to escort her to her family home in Caeris, including Lord Jahan, the emperor's alluring envoy, and in unfamiliar surroundings, Elanna releases the magic she has always suppressed, proving she is heir to the power of the land. She also opens up to Jahan, who has forbidden abilities of his own. Bates deftly builds Elanna's character, transforming her from an overly naïve pawn into a confident woman growing into her powers as she allows herself to explore love. -VERDICT This debut is ideal for fans of romantic fantasy such as Naomi Novik's Uprooted or Juliet Marillier's Daughter of the Forest. It should have great teen crossover appeal.-MM © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.Publishers Weekly Review
This superior novel blends passionate romance and sweeping magic in the first-person, present-tense narrative of a young woman struggling with her destiny in a magical analogue of 13th-century Britain. Elanna was only five when King Antoine seized her as a hostage to stop her father from plotting revolt. She's 19 now, saturated with the attitudes of the royal court but still drawn to the ancient stone circles where the forbidden magic of her northern homeland lurks. Elanna has been taught to deny everything she is, or could be; she knows that she has a special kinship with plants and has the power to control them, but she has subsumed that into planning a career in botany. All this must change when the king is poisoned, she is accused of the murder, and she flees from smothering safety to the wild, free danger of her potential role as "steward of the land." Throughout, she is aided, tempted, and intoxicated by Lord Jahan, a conflicted sorcerer himself. Watching Elanna's gentle desires merge with the angry needs of her oppressed people is fascinating, and Bates has a delicate, precise touch with human and superhuman relationships. (July) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.Booklist Review
Elanna remembers very little about her life before she was taken hostage by a rival king. She believes that her blood is tainted by her traitorous father, and does not willingly seek a reunion with those who abandoned her. Violently thrust into a rebellion when the king is poisoned, she must flee for her life. She ends up in the hands of her father's people, where secrets are traded like currency. Her simmering and untamed magical abilities are finally allowed to blossom, but Elanna struggles with her new identity as a natural sorceress, and does not know where she truly belongs. The world Elanna inhabits combines fascinating pagan symbolism, Regency romance, and political intrigue, where nothing and no one are as they first appear. Even the lush and fecund landscape itself shifts and changes form, and is itself an ever-evolving character. The narrative rambles at points, but the strong characterizations and nature-inspired magic feels fresh and ripe for a sequel to further develop this ecofantasy.--McCammond-Watts, Heather Copyright 2017 BooklistKirkus Book Review
In this debut novel, a young woman must rediscover her ancient powers of earth magic to save a kingdom. Elanna Valtai can make flowers sprout from seeds in her hands and specters rise from ancient stones. But magic has been outlawed for 200 years, ever since the lands of Eren and Caeris were conquered by the foreign empire of Paladis. So El must keep concealed a power she doesn't understand. As a political hostage taken from the royal Valtai family at a young age, El has been treated kindly by her father's enemy, King Antoine, brought up as one of his daughters. But when the king is murdered and El accused, she is forced to flee and return home to a family and people she scarcely remembers. The narrative is most at home in its magical elements, where stone circles come alive with the spirits of ancestors and tree sap sings. But the characters feel thinly drawn, especially El, whose relationships with the king and his family are unconvincing, making the story's foundation feel inauthentic. And while it's a convention to borrow from reality, so much of the story is so loosely disguised it may be distracting to readers. Bates' father god of the Caerisians is a harp-playing deity called "Dagod," while Dagda is the name of a harp-playing god central to Irish myth. El's ancestors are called "the Children of Anu," while ancient Irish myth tells of The Children of Danu. The premise of the novel itself is torn from the Roman conquering of ancient Britain and the (much later) Jacobite rebellion, complete with a "Bonny Prince" Finn, come back to inspire the rebels and claim his throne. Given that Bates had such magical material to work with, her lack of depth and ingenuity is disappointing. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.Author notes provided by Syndetics
Callie Bates is a writer, harpist and certified harp therapist, sometime artist, and nature nerd. When she's not creating, she's hitting the trails or streets and exploring new places. She lives in the Upper Midwest. The Waking Land is her debut fantasy novel.There are no comments on this title.