The Waking Land
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3.3 • 4 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
In the lush and magical tradition of Naomi Novik’s award-winning Uprooted comes this riveting debut from brilliant young writer Callie Bates—whose boundless imagination places her among the finest authors of fantasy fiction, including Sarah J. Maas and Sabaa Tahir.
Lady Elanna is fiercely devoted to the king who raised her like a daughter. But when he dies under mysterious circumstances, Elanna is accused of his murder—and must flee for her life.
Returning to the homeland of magical legends she has forsaken, Elanna is forced to reckon with her despised, estranged father, branded a traitor long ago. Feeling a strange, deep connection to the natural world, she also must face the truth about the forces she has always denied or disdained as superstition—powers that suddenly stir within her.
But an all-too-human threat is drawing near, determined to exact vengeance. Now Elanna has no choice but to lead a rebellion against the kingdom to which she once gave her allegiance. Trapped between divided loyalties, she must summon the courage to confront a destiny that could tear her apart.
Don’t miss any of Callie Bates’s magical Waking Land trilogy:
THE WAKING LAND • THE MEMORY OF FIRE • THE SOUL OF POWER
Praise for The Waking Land
“Callie Bates has written an exciting and involving first book, and she is clearly a writer of real talent.”—Terry Brooks
“A heartbreaking, enchanting, edge-of-the-seat read that held me captive from start to finish!”—Tamora Pierce
“The Waking Land is all about rising to challenges, and it succeeds wonderfully.”—Charlaine Harris
“A simmering tale of magic that builds to a raging inferno, and hits like a cross between Brandon Sanderson and Pierce Brown.”—Scott Sigler
“This superior novel blends passionate romance and sweeping magic. . . . Bates has a delicate, precise touch with human and superhuman relationships.”—Publishers Weekly
“A wonderfully stunning debut . . . Bates’ clear, captivating, imaginative storytelling and vivid, distinctive characters will cause readers to soak up every word.”—RT Book Reviews
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This superior novel blends passionate romance and sweeping magic in the first-person, present-tense narrative of a young woman struggling with her destiny in a magical analogue of 13th-century Britain. Elanna was only five when King Antoine seized her as a hostage to stop her father from plotting revolt. She's 19 now, saturated with the attitudes of the royal court but still drawn to the ancient stone circles where the forbidden magic of her northern homeland lurks. Elanna has been taught to deny everything she is, or could be; she knows that she has a special kinship with plants and has the power to control them, but she has subsumed that into planning a career in botany. All this must change when the king is poisoned, she is accused of the murder, and she flees from smothering safety to the wild, free danger of her potential role as "steward of the land." Throughout, she is aided, tempted, and intoxicated by Lord Jahan, a conflicted sorcerer himself. Watching Elanna's gentle desires merge with the angry needs of her oppressed people is fascinating, and Bates has a delicate, precise touch with human and superhuman relationships.
Customer Reviews
Poor writing
Starts out like a good fantasy book but then quickly becomes very fast paced with zero detail and runs through the story without actually helping the reader visualize and feel the story