Lakesedge
-
- 8,99 €
-
- 8,99 €
Publisher Description
A stunningly written, lush dark fantasy perfect for fans of A Curse So Dark and Lonely and Uprooted.
There are monsters in the world.
Violeta Graceling has spent her life in an isolated cottage, trying to protect herself and her beloved younger brother Arien from their adoptive mother's twisted cruelty. A cruelty driven by the mysterious shadows that unwillingly spill from Arien's hands, spelling dark magic and an even darker underworld.
To escape means taking a position at the haunted estate of Rowan Sylvanan—the so-called "Monster of Lakesedge"—who comes seeking Arien's dark magic. The monster who, it is whispered, stalks the halls of his manor and the shores of the blackened, cursed lake.
Yet as Violeta investigates Lakesedge's tragic history, she discovers that its prickly, standoffish lord is far from a monster, but an orphaned boy not much older than she is. As their friendship blossoms, Violeta learns the tragic truth of Rowan's curse and his fateful bargain with the Lord Under. To save Lakesedge, she must make a bargain of her own with the fiendish being who rules over the world Below.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Clipstone's literal-leaning, overwhelmingly white fantasy debut runs the Gothic trope list aesthetically but founders under a looping compulsion for self-sacrifice. Foundling Violeta Graceling, 17, can see her younger brother Arien's nightmares—shadows that claw her through his hands and draw their pious foster mother's violence to burn death god The Lord Under out of him. But when regional lord Rowan—a beautiful, facially scarred 19-year-old who purportedly murdered his family—notices Arien's power and spirits him to the cursed Lakesedge Estate, Violeta forces her way in, obsessed with protecting Arien. Rowan plans to use Arien's magic to mend the Corruption that is poisoning Lakesedge and consuming him. But as dark visions stalk the halls, Violeta discovers that the estate's secrets connect to the magic she traded away in a devil's bargain years ago—and she might have to choose between her attraction to Rowan and mending him and Lakesedge both. Narrator Violeta's controlling reflexes and an unsubtle blurring between desire and violence combine disturbingly with challenges repeatedly solved through self-harm, resulting in a linguistically lush fantasy of helplessness whose plotting frequently bends around emotion rather than developing its own ideas. Ages 14–up.
