First things first, I'm still here. I'm hoping that I'll be able to come back full-time next month but at the moment the jury's still out on that, so for now all I'm able to post is the occasional review. I have another book review, this one a historical fantasy romance called Watersmeet by Rachel Cotterill. I requested a copy of the book on Bloggers Required in return for an honest review. So what's Watersmeet about, you ask?
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Summary:
Young Ailith, an unaware mage, is sent by a secret guild in her village to retrieve a relative of one of the guild members, who by all accounts has been held hostage for decades by an elusive and potentially dangerous lord. Arriving under the guise of a potential apprentice to said lord, Ailith is determined to both find the man and strengthen her magical skills. The longer that she is around the lord, however, Ailith finds herself questioning the mission she undertook as well as the many warnings and stories surrounding her new mentor. Reality has proven itself to be quite different from what she was told, and as a result Ailith has to add battles with new foes (who happen to have familiar faces) to her to-do list. The real battle for Ailith comes in figuring out to do with what she learns and reconciling that against the feelings she has begun to develop.
Firstly, I loved Ailith. I loved her strength and maturity, which she maintained even through the times she was unsure or afraid, I thought she was extremely intelligent and didn’t let the opinions of others permanently dictate her way of thinking, and wasn’t too prideful to admit her mistakes. She was very different from a lot of the other heroines in books, and I loved that about her.
Leofwin was much more intriguing than I thought he’d be; he wasn’t the normal brooding, condescending, reticent hero with tons of secrets that kept him running scared from Ailith. He also wasn’t the crying, overly sensitive hero that Ailith had to wear the pants with, and I appreciated that the author was able to write a hero who had secrets without making his personality one of the two extremes. There was a quiet strength and calming sort of appeal to Leofwin that I really enjoyed reading about, especially compared to many of the heroes in the period romances I read.
Another thing I enjoyed was the firm opposition of the villages to any kind of magic (at least out in the open); it added a level of intrigue with the constant threat of being discovered. I liked that a lot of the character progression came through conversation and action rather than narrative; we got to see the tones of conversation change as the characters grew and got closer instead of the narrative simply telling us about the progression of the relationships.
The details of the magic itself were very interesting and one of my favorite parts of the book; finding out about the limitations and abilities of the characters’ magic was so different from other fantasy books I have read.
This is a smaller note, but I also enjoyed the little angle with Leofwin’s eye after it gets injured. It wasn’t engineered to be part of a larger scheme in the plot; it wasn’t even resolved at the end of the book and I found that to be oddly realistic. After he got injured, it remained a thorn in his side periodically throughout the rest of the novel. I enjoyed that smaller bit of continuity; usually these injuries have a larger purpose or are quickly and quietly resolved. The likelihood of a quick resolution is usually increased when magic comes into play, but this one wasn’t given the convenient out and the reader wasn’t able to forget that it happened.
What I didn't like:
I don't have too many complaints about Watersmeet at all, but my largest complaint would be the lack of detail surrounding a few things but mainly the attitude towards practicing magic. For all the fear that the characters had over being discovered in the act and the fact that said discovery resulted in one of the largest plot developments, I didn’t feel like I got a full story on why such an attitude developed.
I also didn’t understand the change in Garrick. His behavior at first seemed rather normal but somewhere towards the middle, he went 180 degrees in the other direction and the change was a bit jarring.
I couldn’t figure out Malachi’s angle in the story either; despite having a reputation for doing things for his own benefit, I didn’t see where he benefitted at all from helping Ailith. I actually think he unwittingly contributed to his own demise.
Overall:
Overall, I really enjoyed Watersmeet. I thought it was well-written, well-detailed in certain parts of the book, and had both a likeable hero and heroine. The writing style wasn’t too wordy (unlike this review LOL), it wasn’t too complicated, and I didn’t see too much of characters, save for Garrick, acting in a way that didn’t make sense. The story in general has a lot of potential to be carried on in future stories, where hopefully we’ll see a bit more fleshing out of both Leofwin and Ailith as well as those they interact with. Usually when books are part of a larger saga, the two main characters become background in later novels, but I think there’s more to Leofwin and Ailith’s story so I’d like to see more of them. There’s so much more to explore with them as their story is just beginning and although Watersmeet is a good standalone book, it was a wonderful setup for more chapters in the saga. If you like period books about magic, clean romances without the typical filler material between the two main characters and want to read a book that gives you a glimpse into a completely different world, I suggest you check out Watersmeet.
If you'd like to buy the paperback edition of this book, it will be out on February 1st. You can buy an e-version now from Smashwords for $3.99, or check out the preview to see if it's something you'd like. If you do download the book, come let me know what you thought!
You can follow the author, Rachel Cotterill, on any of her social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter or Instagram); she doesn't mind chatting with her readers or following them back.
As for me, I'll be back in the next few days or so with an update on my extended hiatus. I would give a firmer date, but I'm currently on an extremely old XP computer (complete with the loud, buzzing tower to prove it) that takes the length of a full-term pregnancy to do...well, pretty much anything, so I'm at its mercy every time I turn it on. It also probably has a virus. In other words, it's a real gem. lol Anyway, I'll go into more detail about that later. I hope you're having an amazing weekend and you're staying warm, go check out Watersmeet and I'll talk to you soon!
'Til next time,
