Rating: WARTY!
The July smack-down continues with Goshena and Lady Marciana Soliven up for consideration. Just like with the Marvels (Captain and Ms) yesterday, both of them smacked themselves down. No winners today!
Comoros is the home of Lady Marciana Soliven, daughter of King Brannon. She's known as Maia, and she lives perforce with Lady Shilton, the current Queen's mom. This is a land where both magic and reading are forbidden to women. Maia can read and she has a connection to the magic, but she has been stripped of her title and imprisoned in her "home". We meet her the day she has visitors, and has to clean herself up for them after having barfed profusely.
It turns out that her father, who banished his daughter the same day he banished his first wife, has need of her now. She has the power and the medallion. She's the only one who can go to the abbey and repeal the malaise which has gripped Comoros since her father threw out the magicians. Now she must go, escorted by an assassin who is supposed to protect her, and find the cure for her homeland.
The map of Comoros look very much like a map of western Europe, with a portion of Scandinavia, and Great Britain and Eire tossed in for good measure, but with the rest of Europe and Asia cropped off. The art work was interesting but not particularly special. For me this story has little to offer that's original or interesting. It's your standard wizard fantasy.
I can't recommend this based on what I've read in this one volume, but Net Galley, which supplied this from the publisher, has a new scheme going on here by which subsequent editions of the series are made available to reviewers as they are released, and I signed up for that, so I'll review the next one when it's available and see if things improve.
