Witchlanders
By Lena Caokley
Kismet Book Tour
Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers
Publish Date: August 30, 2011
Format: Hardback, pp 416
Age Demographic: Young Adult
b&n // amazon
High in their mountain covens, red witches pray to the Goddess, protecting the Witchlands by throwing the bones and foretelling the future.
It’s all a fake.
At least, that’s what Ryder thinks. He doubts the witches really deserve their tithes—one quarter of all the crops his village can produce. And even if they can predict the future, what danger is there to foretell, now that his people’s old enemy, the Baen, has been defeated?
But when a terrifying new magic threatens both his village and the coven, Ryder must confront the beautiful and silent witch who holds all the secrets. Everything he’s ever believed about witches, the Baen, magic and about himself will change, when he discovers that the prophecies he’s always scorned—
Are about him.
*Summary taken from Goodreads.
Witchlanders is a cleverly written brilliant tale of magic. Coakley is sure to draw her reader's in with fantastic world building, memorable character's, unique storytelling dymanics, and a mystical plot worth reading more than once. It possesses all the elements that will leave its audience clammoring for more, once they've turned the last page.
The worlds that Coakley has created and illustrated in Witchlanders are simply unlike any other that I've personally read before. They are rich and lush in the detail, that she pays so careful attention to. Readers will want to sink into to the pages of this amazinglycomplex story, in attempts at getting closer to the truth. What they will be met with is great loyalty, the suspenese of lies and truth meeting at a sort of crossroads, and the importantance of family, honor, and a very undeniable strong sense of duty only to discover that all of this is bound together by magic.
Questions will be formed in their minds, about what the main protagonist believed to be true all his life and what really is true, and the answers to them will slowly begin to unravel and come to light. There are so many fascinating things going on in Witchlanders that have the ability to possess so much imagination and creativity in things such as the Gormy Men and the bone-throwing witches, which were interesting and captivating. The level of originality presented by Coakley will definitely astound any reader.
Witchlanders has a lot of things going for it, but the two things that I found the most refreshing about it, was the fact that it's not a romance and it's also narrated by two males which is not very common in a lot of the young adult fiction that I've found myself reading. Ryder is an interesting character that's been very well developed, with a lot of thought put into him. In fact, I would go so far as to say, that he's one of the most realistically written and easily believable character's I've read in young adult fiction in the last several months.
He doesn't believe in the magic, because his mother spent so much time telling him that "boneshaking" was more of a parlor trick, than anything with real substance to it. Ryder rejects the belief in magic or anything that his mother has to tell him as a result of the boneshaking and her predictions that an assassin will soon be arriving to cause them all great harm. He's a strong, yet determined and sometimes an angry young man, that's dealing with his own personal grief and realizing that he does have a certain sense of duty that he holds himself accountable to. These are wonderful qualities for any strong male protagonist to possess and the very reason, he's likeable in that sense that he's loyal and dependable.
Coakley has this magical ability to ensure that all of her character's shine, whether they're main characters meant to move the story along with personal depth and growth, or they're smaller character's that server a sense of purpose all their own. They are all carefully crafted, well developed, and thoughout intelligent people who make the story worth the reader's time. In it's very essence, Witchlanders is a novel that is very compelling and eye-opening, with with an amazing world that has the ability to put the reader right there in the middle of it.
This is fantasy at its highest level and I don't know any other way to say it, except to say that I fell in love with it - ALL OF IT - and I would gladly fall all over again willingly. Coakley just has this uncanny ability to convince the reader to put away everything and read this book. This is an author who writes with tremendous amount of integrity and it shows in her character's, in her world building skills, and her attention to detail by making all of the character's (small or large) shine in so many wonderful ways that it only illuminates the story being told more.
Her villians are wonderful at being villians and she's mastered the art of having her character's look even further inside and question themselves and their motives. Her myth's and mysteries take on a life of their own. They captivate and intrigue the reader, enticing them to read further and delve between the pages of a phenomenally unique story being told that isn't compounded by teenage love at first sight and becomes more about the adventure, the journey of figuring things out and what they mean, of becoming that person who is so filled with honor and intent at protecting those around them from sheer evil forces, all the while learning to embrace what they've been taught were nothing more than parlor tricks for those easily bought.
Witchlanders is just wonderfully amazing read that readers who enjoy fantasy, will not be disappointed in.
{ This E-ARC was provided by S&S GalleyGrab, in exchange for an honest review which I have provided. No money exchanged hands, I review books for fun because I love to read. I am not interested in monetary gain. Any piece of this E-ARC that was/wasn't quoted, is not part of the finished product and should not be perceived as such.}
