I loved pretty much all the characters, not just Hetta.
I deeply appreciated having a heroine who is fun and flirtatious and scandalous and also has a real core of integrity and principle, and that these two things are not presented as being in conflict with each other. Seeing her reckon with this throughout the book was a lovely journey. She was dependent on her family for neither shelter nor occupation nor affection now she’d built those things for herself, and her family had no ability to threaten her by withholding them.īut while she realizes she does not need her family, they actually need her. This is, after all, why she left and is using her considerable magical talents in the theater in the big city of Meridon. She is an independent, modern, feminist woman who thinks her oftentimes backwards, traditional family needs to kindly remove their heads from their assess. The characters are wonderful: presented as eminently fallible, but also capable of good and great things. Everything is infused with whimsy and awe and wonder. Tone-wise, there is something just so kind and delightful and magical about this book. Genre-wise, this is a well-paced fantasy mystery with a strong romance subplot.
(Did I mention this book has faeries? I am a TOTAL SUCKER for faeries). Adding to the chaos is the fact that faeries are now making mischief within Stariel’s borders. Hetta, Jack, and Marius find themselves somewhat reluctantly teaming up to investigate possible sabotage at Stariel with the help of the sexy, mysterious butler of Stariel Manor, Wyn.
Of course, the ceremony does not go quite as anticipated. The magic could choose any member of the family, but everyone is fairly confident the one chosen will be either Jack, Hetta’s cousin and her father’s protegee, or Marius, Hetta’s introverted, anxious brother. At the beginning of the book, she is returning to Stariel Manor because he has died and tradition dictates that all members of the Valstar family must return to the ancestral land, where a magical ceremony will determine the next Lord of Stariel. The Lord of Stariel follows Hetta Valstar, a young stage illusionist of noble birth who has not been home to Stariel in years because she is estranged from her (mean, stern, traditional) father. And BOY HOWDY did this book just wrap its little book-hands around my heart and warm me up from the inside out. One night in the weeks leading up to the US presidential election, I was in desperate need of a distraction and I finally started it. I had been saving it up for a while because the blurb sounded wonderful, but I was nervous about whether it would live up to my expectations. Sometimes a book is just exactly what you need right when you need it, and The Lord of Stariel was that book for me. Genre: Fantasy/Fairy Tale Romance, Romance, Science Fiction/Fantasy
0 kommentar(er)
