Confession-- I have not yet finished this book! ACK!
But this is a Virtual Book Tours Book, so I'll post a "first look" today and a full review next week.
Sealgair runs with wolves, Awena is trapped in her own mind, and it may be up to Seanns to fix things.
So far, honestly, I'm having kind of a hard time with this one. The italicized text is really distracting (every single name, place name, or word in the little glossary is italicized all the way through). And while it's great to have the definitions for all of these very Celtic/Welsh names, what I need is a pronunciation guide!
This is listed as "children's fiction" but I'm not sure what age group it's aimed at. I think you'd lose readers under 13 or 14... especially since we don't meet the young Seanns until at least 50 or so pages in.
I do really really like Seanns, though. I don't find him 100% believable, but I like him.
And let's be honest, four days of camping with my monkeys may have addled my brain. So it could just be me having trouble following the story because I'm out of it. :D
Either way, I'm interested to see what Seanns does next on his quest for the "papyrus pearl".
Hello, Book Habitue. First of all, thank you so much for welcoming my book in your Blog and for reading it with interest.
ReplyDeleteAs for the italic, I'm sorry if it confuses you. I want to explain that I'm a Portuguese and there are a few differences in writing conventions between England and Portugal that I wasn't aware of. By using italic, I tried to give the most respect to a Language that I'm passionate about and there was a point of making a difference from the Archaic to the New.
The Classification is dubious? I understand. I never thought that this book would be for children below eleven too. There was no adolescent cathegory, though. This book was meant for youngsters,but not exclusively.
Seanns is a little boy, but is placed in another time; he is not a teenager of our days. The mentalities were different,then. It is quite understandable that you can't see him a hundred per cent as one of our teenagers. Well, sometimes when I think of myself as a teenager, I can't believe it too. And it was the time when Seanns was conceived.
Well, once more, with all empathy, I appreciate your "diving" into this book and I hope the Seanns' story can captivate you better that the rest (as in fact it did with me).
All the best.
Ah, I wondered if it was a linguistic difference. (Like when I read German and all nouns are capitalized. Takes a lot of getting used to!)
ReplyDeleteI think the best American classification might be YA- young adult. Or YF- youth fiction, which is probably where my local library would put it.
I think Seanns will become more real and believable as I get further into the story. He's a mass of interesting ideas and contradictions, though, isn't he?
Thank you. I'll try to re-arrange the classification with the Publisher.
ReplyDeleteYou are very kind.
You are telling me something new... Now I'm wondering if, for as much as I wanted to keep a distance, some of my troubles have passed to him. Poor Seanns. :)
ReplyDeleteAw, I think it's what makes him so lovable. :D
ReplyDelete