Reflection Pond, By Kacey Vanderkarr

Today I am reviewing a fairly new book, Reflection Pond, by indie author Kacey Vanderkarr. It is an urban fantasy, centering around the concept of the fae world, juxtaposed against the mortal world.

The Blurb:

Sometimes you find home, sometimes it comes looking for you.

Callie knows a lot more about pain than she does about family. She’s never belonged, at least, not until she falls through a portal into her true home. The beautiful faerie city of Eirensae doesn't come free. Callie must find her amulet and bind herself to the city, and most importantly, avoid the Fallen fae who seek her life. Seems like a small price to pay for the family she’s always wanted.

Then she meets cynical and gorgeous Rowan, who reads the darkness of her past in her eyes. He becomes Callie’s part-time protector and full-time pain in the ass. He has secrets of his own for Callie to unravel. What they don’t know is that the future of Eirensae lies with them, and the once peaceful city is about to become a battleground for power.

My Review:

This was a book I might never have come across if it hadn't been for a little serendipity. I happened to meet Kacey Vanderkarr via her book review website. I was hoping to get a review of Huw the Bard, and while she declined to review my book,(it is definitely not YA which is all she reviews) the premise of her book intrigued me, so I bought it. 

The blurb makes it sound like a full on romance, but it is not—it’s an adventure with a romance, and there are adult themes mentioned, but it’s not graphic.  

Callie is portrayed realistically, and her reactions to the situations she finds herself in are quite true to the way a person with her history might react. Rowan is also quite realistically portrayed, and he too has a painful history.

The politics of Eirensae and lust for power displayed by several of the fae who guard her is well plotted. The fae don't raise their own children, instead they are raised as orphans in foster homes by mortal who are unaware of their true origin. When they come of age, they are brought back, and then they must find their amulet, or be cast out again. That is a really original take on the old changeling myth, one that made sense to me.

This is a good story. There is something about this little adventure that kept me turning pages, ignoring work I was supposed to be doing. 

Vanderkarr writes with power. Her narrative sucks you in, and doesn't let you go. My one and only complaint is that while it did have an ending of sorts, it's a set up for the next book, and who know how long before she can get the next installment written. Still, it was a full day’s entertainment, and what more can a person ask for out of a book than that?

I highly recommend it as a New Adult Fantasy, and give it 5 stars.

The War of the Flowers by Tad Williams

Today I am revisiting one of my favorite books of the last twenty years, The War of the Flowers by +Tad Williams. Originally published in 2003, I first bought this book the day it was released as a paperback. I've often said I will always buy a book for its cover, and I liked the art so much that I bought the book despite the rather lackluster blurb. The REAL reason I bought this book—Tad Williams has an incredible ability to write a tale that grips the reader and drags them in, blurring the lines between the real and the imagined with his trademark virtuosity.

The Blurb:

Theo Vilmos' life is about to take a real turn for the worse.

He is drawn from his home in Northern California into the parallel world of Faerie, for, unknown to him, he is a pivotal figure in a war between certain of Faerie's powerful lords and the rest of the strange creatures who live in this exotic realm.

My review:

This is a REAL fairy tale.  Theo Vilmos doesn't know it, but he is a changeling. Switched at birth, he suffers from a disconnection from the world of Northern California, always feeling as he lived somehow outside of the rest of society. He is a rock musician, and pours his heart into his music.

His life has somewhat gone to hell, and at the age of thirty he's a washed up rocker reduced to playing with a bunch of young wanabes. His mother (or the woman he'd believed was his mother) is dead, his unborn child has died and his girlfriend blames him for the child's death. 

After his mother's death, Theo discovers a book written by his great-uncle, Eamonn Albert Dowd, among his inheritance. Theo's imagination is fired by the book. He assumes the book is a work of fiction as it describes a character who travels the world and eventually discovers an ancient passage into another world full of fairies and other mythical creatures. He quickly discovers the true nature of his uncle's book as he is rescued from the clutches of an ancient disease-spirit known as an irrha by a small fairy named Applecore.

The World of Faerie is not such a pretty place either. The very rich use the very poor in the most literal sense of the word, with no compassion and no regrets. The powerful houses have long been at war and all of the magic creatures are caught up in it. Fairie suffers from all the blight of the mortal urban world, and then some. Fairies come in a range of humanoid and nonhumanoid forms. The more powerful fairies look like extremely beautiful humans with elvish features and, unlike fairy commoners, lack wings. 

These members of the noble houses are known as Flowers and are divided into several influential families, each named after a different type of flower.

Seven great family houses rule over the rest of the houses: Thornapple, Hellebore, Violet, Lily, Daffodil, Hollyhock and Primrose, but the Violets are now extinct, having been wiped out by an alliance of the other six great houses in the last War of the Flowers. Other prominent families include Daisy and Foxglove. The families are divided into three factions, those who believe that the fairies should coexist with humans, called Creepers, those who believe that humans should be eradicated, called Chokeweeds, and those who are uncertain what to do, called Coextensives.

Passage between the worlds is restricted by the Clover Effect. Each person, human or fairy, has one exemption from the effect; in other words they can only travel once to the other world and then back to their own.

Theo Vilmos is a great character—slightly flawed and rather naïve for a man of 30 years of age. He makes many friends and enemies in a very short space of time. He does stupid things and regrets them. Still, we find ourselves rooting for Theo, and enjoying the ride.

Applecore is a wonderful character. For such a tiny creature, she is full of fire and passion, loyal to a fault and is my favorite character in this tale. She's a gutsy, gritty heroine who also has her flaws.

In The War of the Flowers Tad Williams created a Faerie Land unlike anything you ever read. It’s Faerie on steroids, urban, dirty and nothing is what it seems. This book doesn't get the sort of attention it deserves, in my opinion. The War of the Flowers is the sort of book that people will read twice— I've read it 3 times myself.

So far as I've been able to find, this book is not available for the Kindle, but it is available in paperback.  I know +Tad Williams is NOT an indie, but stretch your wings, readers. Go mainstream for a moment and enjoy the journey! This is the sort of writing with the plot development and world building we indies aspire to. Williams is a master, and it is a nearly physical pleasure to sink into a corner of the sofa with one of his books in hand, and ignore the real world for the day.