by Lena Coakley
3.5/5
While the dust jacket introduces us to our main protagonist, there are two boys at the heart of this story. Ryder does not believe in the witches. He is more practical than that. While he has always been such, at the start of the novel he has also taken on the responsibility of his family after his father’s death. He has given up his own big dreams in order to keep the family farm afloat. Falpian is in mourning for the loss of his twin brother, and wants nothing more than to prove himself to his father.
The fact that these two boys play such a prominent role in the novel raises an issue I have with the cover design. At first appearance the cover appears to be a frigid winter landscape. A second glance reveals the profile of a young woman. There has been a lot of press lately about the idea of gendered covers, and how such books are perceived. I for one am fine picking up a book regardless of it has a “masculine” or “feminine” cover. Unfortunately, this is easier for women to do than men. For some reason there is a stigma against men reading “girly” books. This cover seems like a small, inconsequential issue. Or, something I wish desperately was a non-issue. Regardless, I fear that the design of this cover might prevent some boys from picking up this book. That is a shame. The main characters are men, something it can be difficult to find in young adult fantasy right now. Additionally, the story explores some really interesting ideas of beliefs, expectations, and coming-of-age.
Within the story itself, the land dispute and the Witchlanders forcing the Baens in their territory into the Bitterlands after the war present parallels to the Israel/Palestine conflict to me. I’m not trying to say that the book offers any specific commentary on that situation or bashes one over the head with one point of view; rather, that even fantasy is based in some sort of fact. Granted, the connections I draw are filtered through my own experiences (“experiences” here being a class on the Israel/Palestine conflict). These parallels may also help explain some of the Baen’s backwards ideas about women. We open an entire section with the idea that in the Baen women are not allowed to practice magic, while Falpian also informs us of the fact. However, this also establishes that differences between the two people are cultural as well. Coakley also describes racial differences between the two people. Those made me uncomfortable, and I do not know if it was my own conflict-aversion, PC world, or that I felt it was unnecessary with the other elements.
At times the world can seem cramped. I get that Ryder wants to protect his family, primarily his sisters, but at times the stakes feel off. For most of the book I have no real concept of the Witchlander’s world. I think the third part of the book does the best at painting a vivid picture of where we are, but I’d like to see that throughout. Overall, I was happy to see a fantasy that tackled some of these big themes. I think that it could have been fine tuned a bit. I also think the jacket summary and cover could have reflected the tone and themes of the book better.
Tea and Tomes 