Home From The Sea [Hardcover]

Contains spoilers

Mari is a Welsh fisherman's daughter who discovers on her 18th birthday that she is obligated to marry a 'Selch' (selkie) as part of a generations-long bargain between her family and the seal clan. At the same time, she learns that the fantastic sprites she's been seeing her whole life are actually indicative of her growing potential as a Water Master. Nan and Sarah (repeat characters who debuted in The Wizard of London) are sent by Lord Alderscroft to investigate the reports that a new Elemental Mage is coming into power.

So much for the summary.... unfortunately, for three-fourths of the book, that's about all there is. It reads much more like a Louisa May Alcott accounting of daily life than the fantasy adventure in the previous Elemental Masters novels. There are minor points of conflict: Mari's reluctance to be bartered off as a bride, and her subsequent bargain with the Selch leader; and a new, bullying constable who's more of a nuisance than a threat to anyone. In the meantime, Nan and Sarah (now grown and returned from off-screen African adventures) conduct a failed experiment in teaching, debate what to do with themselves, and wander off for a sea-side holiday at Alderscroft's behest. Mari enjoys being courted by handsome young men, learning the extents of powers with a Selch Druid's tutelage, and harvesting various forms of seaweed to cook with. My Kindle showed 80% of the book completed before any sort of significant danger even began to reveal itself - and when it arrived, it was with insufficient justification based on the previous pages. There was almost no tension for most of the story.

It was a huge contrast to previous books in the series, where an antagonist is established almost immediately through his/her POV scenes, and slowly revealed to the heroes. Instead, the encounters preceding the climax seem incredibly mild, there are no antagonist POV scenes, and therefore the antagonist's major attack is very out of proportion and unbelievable in context. That being said, the writing is very pleasant, and a fun read overall; I just wish I'd known it would be so different from previous installments.

I do wonder if Lackey is planning future books to be The Nan And Sarah Show - this seemed more about an 'apprenticeship'-sort of way to set them up as roving detectives for the London mage's society than about anything you would expect from an Elemental Masters book. I'll still continue to read everything she puts out, but I feel like she's losing ground and it's hard to see a favorite author's quality continue to slip.

Specifically, the notion that somehow 2 storyline drafts that couldn't quite work as standalone tales can somehow be knitted together to justify nearly twice what a normal book would cost (the Kindle version just cost me $12.99). And to make matters worse, much of it is just quotations from Shakespeare's "A Midsummer's Night Dream" along with entire sections from Ms. Lackey's earlier novel, "The Wizard of London."

As another reviewer observed, the Nan and Sarah portion of the story (which is the majority) reads like a (poorly written version of) Louisa May Alcott novel. Yes, I know that Ms. Lackey's novels tend to be of a young adult reading level. Yes, I expect this to be a rather light read and not terribly thought-provoking or complex. But I also did expect a coherent story with a decent plot.

The other storyline, about Mari and the Selch clan, was pretty skimpy. Somehow Mari goes from outrage and rebellion at "the Bargain" to being passionately in love with one of the Selch and plotting how to marry him. And as to the Selch chieftain, as a villain, I couldn't quite fathom why. Really, this entire story should have centered around the Water Master Mari & Bargain with the Selch. Instead, it was barely inserted as an excuse for Nan and Sarah's seaside vacation.

I also had a little trouble with the research and timeline of this novel. It follows "Unnatural Issue," which is set in early WWI (1914-1918). This book appears to occur before that somewhat (which is ok), and the description refers to the "Edwardian" era (1901-1910). Yet in the book, the "Squire" is going to be presented to the Queen? If it's the Edwardian era, best present him to the King (Edward, that is). That's more of a mischaracterization of the book description here, though; imagine it's supposedly set in the 1890s.

A lot of rather dreary "everyday life" references things that show up as though the Welsh Wikipedia entry was an outline for the book. In fact, I got the impression that was about the extent of the writer's research. For the readers who wished for something more of the Selch/Selkie and other Old Ones, may I suggest one of Juliet Marillier's lovely works.

If this book were priced as a .99 special, or even up to 2.99, I could excuse the sloppy work and overall scarcity of plot development. At 12.99 for a Kindle and more for a paper copy, it's an outrageously overpriced embarrassment to a writer who is capable of far better.

i am disappointed. too many important parts of the story are quotes taken from a previous book. she's doing this more and more, and what could have been great is boring. i'm giving it to my friend who has a used book store. and i don't normally part with books, but this one is not a keeper.