Wayfinder - C.E. Murphy went in the right direction
*ARC provided by NetGalley
Normally I prefer to start a series with the first book, but when I saw Wayfinder (book 2 in the Worldwalker Duology) listed I couldn’t help myself. The cover was nice and premise sounded very interesting. Overall, it turned out to be an enjoyable read. This was a little more on the high fantasy side as opposed to urban fantasy because you spend a great deal of time in the Barrowlands (a post-apocalyptic land for their Faerie-kin). Thankfully, even though I didn’t read the first book the author catches you up to speed.
The book is centered on Lara Jansen, a not-so-ordinary tailor that has special powers allowing her to be a human lie detector. Her gift makes her very attractive for the beings of this other world, so she reluctantly trades her sewing kit for a magical staff that proves challenging to control… Or is it trying to control her? Either way, she needs it to fend off enemies in the Barrowlands as she tries to rescue her beloved Dafydd, the Seelie prince who originally sought her out for her gift to save his world. As she takes this journey she meets many powerful characters, some friend and some foe.
I found it very easy to immerse myself into the story. There’s a lot of decent action and world-building and the magic was cool. Lara isn’t particularly special or quirky, but the character experiences the necessary growth into her roles as a Truthseeker and then a Wayfinder. The romance for me is a little bland, but this may have been because I didn’t read the first book where a lot of the development happens. As it stands, this book didn’t need that angle to be interesting.
I liked C.E. Murphy’s writing style and I felt as if the pacing was just right. I enjoyed this book enough that I have added the first book to the TBR queue. As a Duology, we’re not committed to an on-going series which is good and bad. I appreciate that the books didn’t drag on, but I think this could have been a decent on-going series if handled well. Either way, I recommend this series.
The Hollows Insider - Ms. Harrison has outdone herself!
I had no idea of what to expect when it came to a world book. I’d surely never read one before, so I was anticipating something fairly close to a textbook, which generally = boring. This was certainly information rich, but boring is was not. In fact, it’s fantastic.
The theme is genius. It kicks off with the Hollows humor we all know and love, instantly drawing you in. It’s basically told from the POV of an innocent bystander of one of Rachel’s spells gone hilariously wrong in her early days as an I.S. Intern. He takes his grudge to the next level and spends time spying and collecting information on our favorite itchy witch and the supporting Hollows characters. He works for the local Inderlander paper and his goal is to expose Rachel. He’s not having an easy time of it which makes things all the more entertaining, so in turn this is how we learn about everything from species facts, character profiles, maps, magic spells, demon curses, recipes, music lyrics and more.
Normally when I crack open a Hollows book I want a new story, but reading about the Hollows world is quite fascinating and surprisingly enough while I already knew some of the facts, I did learn a couple of new things when it came to character insights and spells. It repeats some lines a couple of times depending on the sections, but I didn’t find it annoying. You can tell Harrison really did her homework. She references the smallest things from the previous novels, even Rachel and Ivy’s mistakenly suggestive Yellow Page ad from Book 3. I also liked the clarification of the different magic types between ley line, earth, and demon magic. I wish there was a little more explanation about “wild” magic that the elves typically use, but that didn’t stop my enjoyment one bit.
You can skim or skip sections if you want, or you can take your time and truly absorb the information. It’s definitely an adjustment to have that option for The Hollows.
You pick it up and you really don’t want to put it down. The layout and graphics are very nice to look at which helps a lot. Reluctantly, I couldn’t read it in one sitting being the busy bee that I am, but it was on my mind until I could get back to finishing it. Heck, I want to read it TWICE and you will NEVER hear me say that about a text book!
If you’re an ebook reader, don’t despair. It’s not available in ebook format due to numerous graphics and font variations. I cannot imagine this looking remotely appealing on my kindle, or even on a color e-reader. It’s a reference text and I always find reading those on an ereader to be an awful experience because I often flip back and forth between pages; ebooks just don’t hold up to that for me.
So yes, I found this to be a satisfying read and it no doubt sets the bar extremely high for any other world books I come across. This is highly recommended if you’re a fan of The Hollows, though you will want to be caught up through Pale Demon because there are major spoilers.
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