Crown of Fire - book 1 in the Awenmell series.

[Jones]

A fiction/fantasy novel from an author, Lisa King, with only three book behind her. It's an engaging tale that addresses the distortions that can come in populations that value material possessions, physical perfection, and intellect above all. The lead character, Ashling, comes across three different villages as she flees her childhood home that display those distortions and ends up in a fourth village where things seem relatively fine on the surface, but where tyrannical changes are occuring.

Ashling shows courage and openess while battling with the distortions of her own mind due to a traumatic childhood and indeed the fantasy elements of the story may reflect an escape developed by the author in dealing with her own trauma.

The blurb:

"What you believe about yourself, you will become."

What's Ashling supposed to believe?
Trapped within the ancient walls of Brennyn Hall for all of her sixteen summers, she's only known the horror story fed to her as a child; that she's nothing more than an evil sacrifice; a payment to appease an approaching sinister force.

But what's this new tale?
Could she be part of a lost fable, a legend that compels her to stand against the Hall's power?
Hunted by the Hall, and armed only with a cryptic clue, she races toward the mountain village that promises answers.

The Hall demands her silence.
The people listen for her voice.

With her tormentors closing in and intent on silencing her forever, can Ashling discover the powerful truth of her own story; one set to shake the kingdom to its core?

The second book in the series Rise won the silver medal at this year's Nautilus awards. I haven't read it yet.

 

[nicklebleu]

Read both of them, an enjoyable read with a lot of small gems of musings and advice

 

[Jones]

Yeah, I thought the second book was better than the first. I liked that the lead character realised that the Eariss wasn't just one person, but a group working together.

The author isn't a Balogh by any stretch yet as far as psychological insight goes and the ability to craft that into a story, but she seems to nail the internal battles and the impact of how realising one's ignorance and naivety at the distortions that the effect of pathology can have on perceptions and choices made and the pain of waking up to all of that.

Could just be that she seems like a lightweight in comparison to Balogh because her story isn't engaging all centres. It's a tall order to be compared to Balogh!

I think she does a reasonable job of describing integration of different psychological parts too, though I sometimes had problem with the symbolism she used probably because I am used to thinking of that in a different way.

Some useful insights for sure.