Sakura of DOOM

Unfortunately, not as good as the blurbs in the back sounded. The Summer Country is about Camelot after Arthur's death in the vaguest sense -- we are told it is Camelot, but there's really not that much in the mythology that makes Arthur and Camelot anything but a throwaway history for an imaginary land parallel to our own.

Our heroine is Maureen, someone sexually abused as a child, and thought of as slightly insane by most people. She quickly finds out that she isn't who she thought she was; in fact, she carries the blood of the Summer Country in her and is a powerful witch. Various powerplays ensue.

I had various problems with this book -- not enough to really hate it or even powerfully dislike it, but it's also nowhere near a potential good book for me. I was a bit iffy on the treatment of Maureen's sexual trauma. I can't really pin down why, and I'm a bit scared to, because I have no knowledge on the subject matter and have no idea how accurate or not it may be. I liked the grittiness of the book up to a point, but I got quickly tired of Maureen's paranoia and was rather glad when her sister Jo and Jo's boyfriend David also started taking part of the story, rendering it something other than the Maureen and Brian show, Brian being the guy who tells her about the Summer Country.

The toughness of the characters and the attention to small things like wetting one's pants out of sheer fear were nice touches, especially in the too often glossed over fantasy genre, but in the end, I felt somewhat that the characters were tough just for show. No one in the book felt like a real person to me. Also, sadistic villains with no depth at all annoyed me (incest! torture! rape! like a bad romance's villain!sex).

I don't know. The snippet on the back of the book -- "They have slaves in the Summer Country. Camelot is dead. Arthur is dead. Law is dead. Power rules." -- was so evocative of a dystopia, of Camelot gone horribly wrong, that I was kind of disappointed when the real conflict of the story turned out not to be anything big like saving Camelot or helping or anything, but rather, rescuing Maureen once she is kidnapped! After the rescue of Maureen (by herself, which was also nice. One cannot argue that Hetley wrote wussy females), the book basically ends. From the blurbs, it sounds like a single volume.

Something that also alienated me from the book was the (imho) gratuitous violence, particularly a scene in which Maureen avenges herself. Squick. Blood everywhere. I don't know if I'm particularly sensitive to violence... I think I am, but I can also read bits like the Kushiel series and not be disgusted at all. It depends on the level of emotion I've invested in the story and in the characters and if that investment is paid off. I like the pain and the angst and the blood, but only if there's some underlying bright human emotion underneath, from the twisted love of Spike/Buffy and Wes/Lilah to Phedre enduring Darsanga for Imriel or the thorny lines of hate and love and sorrow and pain in Tigana. This one I felt didn't have that to justify the violence. Also, I was a little irked at the true love of Brian and Maureen overcoming sexual abuse thing, especially when there was absolutely no development of why Maureen might like Brian except that he *gasp* was nice and protected her, or any reason Brian might like Maureen except she was a giantly powerful witch.