Abe, Shana - The Treasure Keeper and The Time Weaver
Sun, Sep. 26th, 2010 08:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
oyceterThe Treasure Keeper - Zoe Lane, like most of the female drakon, can't manage the Turn to dragon, but unlike the other women, she can turn herself invisible and see ghosts or spirits. Meanwhile, Rhys Langford has been kidnapped by the sanf inimicus, human enemies of the drakon. When Zoe sets out to find her missing fiance, Rhys' spirit keeps talking to her.
I just had to do a re-skim to see what happens in this book, because I completely didn't remember. The romance doesn't work very well because Zoe thinks Rhys is dead, and the final resolution has the same problem I've had with all the other drakon books save Dream Thief—despite her very real reasons to not want to go back to Darkfirth, Zoe ends up back there anyway so she can be with the man she loves.
The book works better as a set up for the next.
The Time Weaver - Honor Carlisle was taken from Darkfirth by Lia and Zane of Dream Thief, and she discovers she's a time weaver. I do not actually think this is a romance; although Honor's love for Sandu is a large part of the book, Sandu is more The Girl who acts to motivate Honor, rather than a fully-drawn character of his own. Furthermore, the biggest question in the book isn't how Sandu and Honor get together, but what danger future!Honor keeps warning herself against. I also thought the most important relationship in the book wasn't actually the Sandu-Honor romance, but rather the mother-daughter relationship between Honor and Lia.
This is an interesting book if it's looked at as a romance; it's much darker than most, and I was actually afraid Abe was going to kill off heroes and heroines of the previous drakon books. It's also interesting that not only do Honor and Sandu get a bittersweet happily-ever-after, I felt that the plot of the book also undercuts the HEAs of the drakon in Darkfirth. I can't see how Maricara could stay happy with Darkfirth led by Kimber taking over Zaharen Yce while her brother is missing. I suppose Rue and Kit are out of the way, but this book really drives home just how restrictive and terrible Darkfirth is. I suspect Abe didn't mean for it to be as dark as it is, but it's pretty hard to root for Darkfirth and everyone in there just by what's in this book, not to mention how most of the heroines of the past books have basically been roped back into Darkfirth despite not wanting to. Even Lia and Zane, whom I root for most as the most stable couple precisely because they aren't in Darkfirth, are not in a particularly wonderful place.
Anyway, I'd like to see if Abe plans to keep going this direction; I feel her worldbuilding could be improved and deepened, but given that most of her romances end with a strong heroine with a guy I mostly want to beat over the head, it'd be neat to see what she comes up with outside of a romance framework (ditch the alpha males! please!).
I just had to do a re-skim to see what happens in this book, because I completely didn't remember. The romance doesn't work very well because Zoe thinks Rhys is dead, and the final resolution has the same problem I've had with all the other drakon books save Dream Thief—despite her very real reasons to not want to go back to Darkfirth, Zoe ends up back there anyway so she can be with the man she loves.
The book works better as a set up for the next.
The Time Weaver - Honor Carlisle was taken from Darkfirth by Lia and Zane of Dream Thief, and she discovers she's a time weaver. I do not actually think this is a romance; although Honor's love for Sandu is a large part of the book, Sandu is more The Girl who acts to motivate Honor, rather than a fully-drawn character of his own. Furthermore, the biggest question in the book isn't how Sandu and Honor get together, but what danger future!Honor keeps warning herself against. I also thought the most important relationship in the book wasn't actually the Sandu-Honor romance, but rather the mother-daughter relationship between Honor and Lia.
This is an interesting book if it's looked at as a romance; it's much darker than most, and I was actually afraid Abe was going to kill off heroes and heroines of the previous drakon books. It's also interesting that not only do Honor and Sandu get a bittersweet happily-ever-after, I felt that the plot of the book also undercuts the HEAs of the drakon in Darkfirth. I can't see how Maricara could stay happy with Darkfirth led by Kimber taking over Zaharen Yce while her brother is missing. I suppose Rue and Kit are out of the way, but this book really drives home just how restrictive and terrible Darkfirth is. I suspect Abe didn't mean for it to be as dark as it is, but it's pretty hard to root for Darkfirth and everyone in there just by what's in this book, not to mention how most of the heroines of the past books have basically been roped back into Darkfirth despite not wanting to. Even Lia and Zane, whom I root for most as the most stable couple precisely because they aren't in Darkfirth, are not in a particularly wonderful place.
Anyway, I'd like to see if Abe plans to keep going this direction; I feel her worldbuilding could be improved and deepened, but given that most of her romances end with a strong heroine with a guy I mostly want to beat over the head, it'd be neat to see what she comes up with outside of a romance framework (ditch the alpha males! please!).
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Tue, Sep. 28th, 2010 07:42 am (UTC)