I can’t remember why I got this. I find myself reading a lot of genre fiction these days, but this one was better than many and most. A sort of fairy tale and a sort of new world myth (travelers take the ‘Crossing’ to a new land to build a utopia; science doesn’t always work, but some magic does; the Crossing is in the distant past and things have… evolved?… into a traditional, medieval-style fantasy world, with some tweaks like pre-Crossing books, including The Hobbit and cigarettes).

The political machinations remind me a little of The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (perhaps not a coincidence that both are written by women and both feature female protagonists who are described as being plain-looking). Magic-wise, there are summoned demon-like creatures and a pair of necklaces (best compared to the titular elfstones of The Elfstones of Shannara).

At less than four hundred pages, it feels almost short and I read it in just a few days, once I started it (the novel had been sitting, unread, on my Nook for months). I’ll certainly read the sequel (and maybe very soon; I’ve got a trip to see family in Arkansas coming up and it could be a nice option for the flight). If I have criticism, it’s that, at times, it can almost feel like YA. I don’t think it is, or rather, I don’t think it was marketed as such, but it comes close. Though I say that having not really read much recently. I read the first few Harry Potter books (and did not love them; didn’t dislike them, but didn’t love them), but that’s really it. No Hunger Games, no Twilight. I have been known to reread a favorite Narnia novel, but that’s it.