I gotta be honest with you. In my job, I REALLY should have read at least one of the books recently nominated for an award. And I hadn’t, not one. Which I felt slightly guilty about, but then I remembered I was meant to be kind to myself, and figured better late than never. And then I wondered how I had let this one slip past me! Sherryl Jordan is one of my all time favourite authors, and I honestly can’t believe I haven’t picked this up before now. I will note that yesterday, I found it was on my TBR list, I just haven’t read anything from it! - Note: the PopSugar Advanced Section on the 2021 Reading Challenge is all about TBR, so at least I ticked off something there!
All of Sherryl Jordan’s books are wonderful. If you haven’t read them, I 100% recommend Winter of Fire, Rocco, The Juniper Game, Secret Sacrament, Tanith, and the Raging Quiet teens and adults, and The Wednesday Wizard Series for children (or adults who want some fun, lighthearted fantasy). Oh, and this one! I’m used to Jordan’s fantasy books, and in my head, this was fantasy as well. I was wrong! This is a historical fiction - set in a fictional world, but based on the white slave trade. The author’s note tells me that while the Black people were being shipped to America to become slaves, the Muslim people were raiding white Christian settlements for slaves as well. While the places and people in this book are fiction, the author has based them upon real life events and people. This is a beautiful book. If you’re not a fan of descriptive writing, it might not be something you’d pick up, but I urge you to do so. I love when I get so into a book that the real world seems somehow less; less colourful, less enchanting, less real. This book does that from the very start. We follow Elowen from her home, to the bowels of a slave ship, and over a large desert. She has been purchased as a slave for a king, and her life is no longer her own. The language is gorgeous; the places genuinely come alive. I was half in love with Heath by the time the sun rose on the second day in Penhallow, and the characters kept coming. There were numerous characters, and despite some not being deeply explored, they were there enough to add life to the story, without overpowering the main characters. It was well done - the extras were like people who we see during the day, but don’t really know; the regulars at the coffee shop you stop at for breakfast, the patrons who sit in the library each day. Jordan used the 3rd person omniscient amazingly in this book. Our main character was the focus, but we did get insight into the thoughts of other characters such as the King. I won’t tell you more of the story, but believe there are moments where you won’t see a way forward for Elowen. The book is busy and full and has some exciting moments as well as calm, deep ones. Content warnings: war, gore, pirates, slaves, blood, whippings, death. Overall Rating: 10 (out of 5) stars.
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