Fantasy | PC Cast | Elphame's Choice
This is part of the Goddess of Partholon series, which, per the publisher's blurb, is exceedingly popular. I found it difficult to imagine that the heroine and hero would actually face any difficulty in waltzing their way to a happy ending. After all, the Goddess is on the heroine's side, all the way from ensuring that she is born in satyr form to a human mother and centaur father, and is announced as the incarnation of the Goddess herself, right in chapter one.
On the other hand, I've never quite understood why such a stated-as-benevolent goddess would require such bloodthirsty sacrifices for good ends to result. It's not as if there are any real choices along the way, title notwithstanding.
Neither have I got my head around a rose-tinted view of a society in which there are tenth sons, who stand to inherit nothing, so they are super thrilled to have Elphame rebuild the ruined castle, rumoured (correctly, as it turns out) to be haunted. By benevolent ghosts.
Who show us what horrid creatures the ancient winged enemy were. But their descendants, equally winged, are human and stubbornly and relentlessly resist the call of their demon blood for several decades. Benevolently.
Aargh. Anyway, the second half of the book is somewhat better than the first, and the brother-sister dialogues are quite snappy and have a true sibling feel. Loving and benevolent though they are....
But I'm getting less tolerant of books with prophecies. Sigh. The older I get, the fussier I get.
Nope, not checking out more PC Cast books myself, but if you liked Twilight, this may well be up your alley, 170 year old hero, teen heroine, and all.
No comments:
Post a Comment