Gift of Magic [Paperback]

I can't believe that I'm actually going to give a Nine Kingdoms story only three stars. I don't WANT to give it three stars. Lynn Kurland is my favorite author, and these Nine Kingdom books were my favorites of her books. Besides, I wanted this book to be fantastic! And yet, when I compare it against other books I've already reviewed (and even others she's written), I realize that it's less satisfying than others I've already rated 4-stars. And 3 1/2 stars isn't an option. So three it will be, unless I like it better (and catch stuff I missed) the second time through.

First, since I've provided this on all my other reviews of the series and I know it's helpful to new readers, here are the current Nine Kingdoms books:

Two Prelude short stories, found in anthologies with other authors:
The Queen in Winter (When Symon, the first king of Neroche, woos and wins Iolaire)
To Weave a Web of Magic (The Tale of Two Swords where Mehar and Gilraehen fall in love)

Miach and Morgan's story is told in:
1- Star of the Morning (The Nine Kingdoms, Book 1)
2- The Mage's Daughter (The Nine Kingdoms, Book 2)
3- Princess of the Sword (The Nine Kingdoms, Book 3)

Ruith and Sarah's story (which OVERLAPS Miach and Morgan's story in the timeline) is told in:
4- A Tapestry of Spells (The Nine Kingdoms, Book 4)
5- Spellweaver (The Nine Kingdoms, Book 5)
6- Gift of Magic, (this book)

And Lynn Kurland has said there are more Nine Kingdoms trilogies planned for successive Januaries.

So this book is the culmination of the second trilogy. There is no cliffhanger, and Ruithneadh of Caingail and Sarah of Diore (or maybe of somewhere else ::grins::) get their Happily-Ever-After.

Spellweaver ended with just a hint of what might be waiting at the end of Ruith and Sarah's quest. This story also focuses more on the continuation of Ruith's struggle within himself. His pride is pitted against his awareness that he wasted 20 years of practice and skill that he can't regain in a fortnight.

I'll warn readers who have read the first two...this story does not go quite where you think it's going to, or even where you might hope that it will. It didn't for me. I felt that it didn't live up to the promise that Spellweaver led me to anticipate. It's also a little confusing in a few places. (Which is a first for this author.)

But I did still enjoy parts of it very, very much. I still love Sarah's gift of seeing; I just wish she (and we) could have enjoyed it more. I like her ability to dreamweave; I just wish it had been explained and shown more clearly.

The quality of writing is still quite good, though some elements of plotting are less than what the author usually delivers (hence the bits of confusion in a few places). There is also a lot more repetition of words, phrases, and ideas than this author used to do. I hope this is not an increasing trend.

For the most part, the three-stars in this book go to the continuation and completion of Ruith's character arc. When the story began in A Tapestry of Spells, Ruith was still hiding and running from his 10-year-old self's horror at the idea of becoming anything like his father. In Spellweaver, he was beginning to realize how much his viewpoint needed to change. By the end of this book, Ruith has finally, completely, and realistically left that behind. He knows who he is... and it is neither the elvin prince who grew up in Seanegarra, nor the hermit on the mountain who buried and hid from his own magic. He is also not the man he feared he'd be.

There are also some really nice concepts to the plot in this story. I liked getting to know Sollier a little more, and I liked that this plot turned out to be NOTHING like Miach and Morgan's story.

The story looses two stars, however, because the romance between Ruith and Sarah never moves to the place where you can feel it. Sarah really doesn't grow much, and we're left wondering how much she really loves Ruith. We never do get to see Ruith use the power he was working on building (which makes me wonder why he was working to strengthen it). Put all that together, and the final showdown is very anti-climatic.

It really is a mix. Some aspects of the book I absolutely loved, while others just didn't fulfill the expectations set by the previous two books.

So, to sum up, those who felt the showdown at the end of Princess of the Sword was anti-climatic will feel far more disappointed on this one. Those who were hoping to see Ruith flex his magical powers will also be disappointed. But those who enjoy a very mild romance and a story that follows a character who explores and tests the depths of his past and his own character should enjoy it.

I'll add one more note... We get to know just a tiny bit more about Runach in this one...and Lynn said on her forums that the next trilogy will be Runach's. With the tantalizing bits of promise we're given here, I'm really hoping that the next trilogy will have the greatness that the first trilogy did.

Gift of Magic takes up where the last book left off - Sarah and Ruith are still following the trail of spells that were amassed by Ruith's magician father, Gair. I would like to be able to give more of a synopsis at this point, but unfortunately, that was basically it. Sarah and Ruith traveled from here to there, picking up spells, gaining aid from enemies and allies, continuing their sweet but slightly immature romance and finally figuring out what the reader knew or suspected all along -Gair is alive.

Throughout this long read, Sarah and Ruith also talked theirselves and everyone around them to death. A very small event or idea would happen and they would huddle up like a high school football team and discuss it in great - trust me, great - detail. At one point, they huddled up and discussed a villian while he stood underneath a tree and watched them. They discussed it for so long, they and the reader forgot he was there until he did something. Hello? How long did they think the guy was going to stand there? They would meet up with a new ally or cousin, and by God, we talked about him too, as well as a good amount of description. A few times Ruith would be forced into defending Sarah and himself, but he would lamely bow out and let another person (such as Sarah's grandfather) take over while he escaped. If he couldn't do magic better than that, what was all the build up for - the pilfering of spells as a child, his great memory, his practice with his brother-in-law, etc. Ruith never really did anything. Sarah was just as bad. We were told from the very beginning she had no magic, so what was the spinning she did - I could barely grasp what she was doing with it. Obviously it was an ace in the hole, but shouldn't more explanation and detail have been given about it? I mean, we described everything else to death - why not this? The fight with Gair at the end - All throughout the 9 Kingdoms Series we heard about Gair and what a horrible, terrible, evil magician he was. Well, it turns out he was defeated in about 3 pages in fairly quick and mediocre way and his reasons for doing things were just lame. Oh, and btw, I love how Gair had been living 4 miles down the road from Ruith his entire life and never contacted him to kill him or neutralize him. Right. Finally we arrive at the end and Ruith proposes to Sarah...hello...thought we solved all that a long time ago. I don't know why in the heck Sarah wanted to marry him - clearly he had no self confidence and was dumber than a rock.

Perhaps the harshness of my review was basically disappointment. I have been reading Lynn Kurland for years. Kurland's book range from very good to excellent, and the 9 Kingdoms series (up to this point) has been very well done. I was expecting so much more out of this book, but instead I felt that a trilogy was in all actuality a story that should have been completely told in two books, so that the author did have to drag - drag - drag things out to create a third.

I can't believe that my 3 favorite authors have all put out books this year that I think really stink. I will save my comments about the others for THEIR books.
I have loved the Nine Kingdoms until this book. Lynn, were you in such a hurry to get this book out, that this effort is so pitiful?

1. All the books have some, shall we say, excess verbosity built in that easily could have been left out, but this one is the worst. It usually takes a few pages for me to re-acquaint myself with the characters and what is going on, but then I'm good to go. A quarter of the way through this book, the characters were still in the same location, still talking about the same thing. This book could have taken a few pages from the front and then the last couple of chapters or so, and called it good. The rest was just a waste of paper, and the story itself was tedius. I had figured out the end way back in the middle of the book.
2.What's with all these magical beings that bemoan not having wonderful eats on their journey...hello?? Conjure something! They can turn themselves into dragons, but a little beef stew is beyond their capabilities?? I could understand it in the first couple of books, when Miach didn't want Morgan to know he was magical, and initially Ruith had buried his magic, but when King Sile and all these other magical bigwigs join in, and they all talk about the lousy food/ale/whatever at the Inns, it just didn't make any sense.
3. Finally, due to nature of the Series, each story (not book) overlaps the other somewhat, but their storylines eventually fit into each other nicely and make sense. I went back and re-read all the previous books just shortly before starting this one, and this one just didn't seem like it fit.

This book makes me regret spending money on it, and I will hesitate before shelling out for the next one.
One final thing, Lynn. If there is a next set in the series (it is a trilogy, right?), please put a pronunciation guide at the beginning. It takes away from the story, not knowing how you intended for the names to be pronounced. Some are not too bad, and certainly the women's names are simpler than the men's, but Mochriadhemiach? C'mon. I can come up with at least 4 different ways of pronouncing that string of letters.

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 17 reviews  3.7 out of 5 stars