Darkborn

Darkborn Alison Sinclair

Characters C-
Originality C
World Building A
Readability/Writing Style A
Overall Grade comes out to a B/B-

With something like this I fall back on the old GPA system, adding the grades together and then coming up with the overall grade by using the average. I posted everything because this is one of those uneven books that is almost impossible to recommend or NOT recommend.

Here is the blurb about the book from Amazon.com:From Publishers Weekly
Quote:
A mysterious curse puts unusual limitations on the cast of Sinclair's slow-moving but intriguing paranormal romance, the first of a trilogy. The blind Darkborn of Minhorne can't survive in the light, while the Lightborn will perish without it. The peaceful lives of Dr. Balthasar Hearne and Lady Telmaine Hearne, magically gifted Darkborn, are disrupted when Tercelle Amberley, once betrothed to Bal's long-missing brother and now engaged to duke-to-be Ferdenzil Mycene, shows up to ask Bal's help in delivering her illegitimate—and Lightborn-fathered—twin boys. She promptly deserts the infants, and an assassin seeking them takes the Hearnes' daughter hostage as further complications ensue. Sinclair (Cavalcade) raises too many unanswered questions, mostly regarding the origins of the curse and the characters' Regency-style manners, but the political intrigue is mostly enough to sustain readers' interest. (May)
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Alison Sinclair is an accomplished writer with a smooth style and knows just how much info to dole out at a time. The book is very, very readable.

But it did have flaws. The main problems came with the characters -- I would have to get into spoiler territory to fully describe them but they tend to be huge contradictions -- traditional but completely unconventional, mild mannered but not etc., etc.. Where in Gardner's "The Neighbor" I was awed by the complexity, in this one it was more contradiction than complexity. The characters behavior and actions simply didn't flow out of who they were. One critical scene that involved the rescue of a kidnap victim was first delayed unnaturally and then handled unnaturally. I didn't like the love quadrangle that sprang up either -- it added a confusion to characters already confusing enough.

In terms of originality, one piece of it was VERY familiar to me from previous fantasy series. I realize the writer was giving her own spin on a classic tale but my complaint was that she didn't dress it up enough for me not to recognize the tale. On the other hand, Lost the TV series and Martin's "Song of Ice and Fire" both did dress it up enough for me to be awed by their handling.


But the world building was AWESOME. The light and dark born were really intriguing and I didn't trip over any contradictory facts, etc.

Overall, if you like fantasy novels I recommend getting this one from the library. It is well worth a read and I am looking forward to following the series.

Tea: Lemon Zinger, a bit otherworldly but also capable of being sweet when you add sugar, tart without.