Seeker
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- $6.99
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
“Katniss and Tris would approve.”—TeenVogue.com
The night Quin Kincaid takes her Oath, she will become what she has trained to be her entire life. She will become a Seeker. This is her legacy, and it is an honor.
As a Seeker, Quin will fight beside her two closest companions, Shinobu and John, to protect the weak and the wronged. Together they will stand for light in a shadowy world.
And she'll be with the boy she loves--who's also her best friend.
But the night Quin takes her Oath, everything changes.
Being a Seeker is not what she thought. Her family is not what she thought. Even the boy she loves is not who she thought.
And now it's too late to walk away.
"This book will not disappoint."-USAToday.com
"Fans of Veronica Roth’s Divergent, Marie Lu’s Legend, and Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games series: your next obsession has arrived."-School Library Journal
"In this powerful beginning to a complex family saga...Dayton excels at creating memorable characters."-Publishers Weekly
“[A] genre-blending sci-fi, fantasy…[with] action-packed scenes.”—Booklist
"Secrets, danger, and romance meet in this unforgettable epic fantasy." —Kami Garcia, #1 New York Times bestselling coauthor of Beautiful Creatures & author of Unbreakable
"A tightly-woven, action-packed story of survivial and adventure, Seeker is perfect for fans of Game of Thrones." —Tahereh Mafi, author of the New York Times bestselling Shatter Me series
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this powerful beginning to a complex family saga, 15-year-old Quin Kincaid, her biracial cousin Shinobu MacBain, and their friend John Hart train on the Kincaid family's Scottish estate to become Seekers, warriors who slip through space and time. Historically, Seekers used their powers and weapons chameleon whipswords and nightmarish, sanity-stripping disruptors to right wrongs. When Quin and Shinobu venture on their first mission, they find they're destined to be assassins for Quin's brutal, manipulative father. The novel's appeal lies less in the slightly futuristic, slightly alternate-history setting, than in the way the nascent Seekers cope with betrayal: Quin and Shinobu flee to Hong Kong, where Quin chooses a path of therapeutic amnesia, and Shinobu plunges into drug use and dangerous salvage diving. Meanwhile, John risks becoming what he most despises as he seeks revenge and possession of his family's "athame," the tool that allows Seekers to cut through the fabric of reality. Worldbuilding can be sketchy, but Dayton (Resurrection) excels at creating memorable characters, among them Maud, the "Young Dread," an ageless child whose mysterious clan is linked to the Seekers. Ages 14 up.
Customer Reviews
Seeker
There are books and there are books. Some books you read and enjoy briefly, but forget about them soon after you’re done. Seeker is not going to be like that for me. It was a dark, engrossing, intense story, and it has left me thinking about many, many things in its wake. I loved the settings—Scotland and Hong Kong in the near-ish future. But the characters are what will stay with me. Maud, also called “The Young Dread” (too hard to explain, but you will *get* her) is still circling around my head dangerously. And the others—Quin, John, Shinobu. They’re all sticking with me.
Quick Read
I read this bok SO quickly and devoured every minute of it. Quin is a bad a@%
diminished by the high expectations and a fairly stagnant plot that did not provide the answers I wa
2 – 2.5 stars
A title that takes more than a bit of patience, Seeker arrives with a unique premise and world-building, but the narration, third person, omniscient and presented by four different characters leaves readers with a remove and slows the pacing considerably. When it does pick up, I’m happy to say that the story becomes more engaging, although many of the basic questions are only answered vaguely.
I’ve seen this before: synopsis comparisons to mash up highly popular titles written by those who have not (apparently) focused on the pages before them. While from a marketing standpoint, the actual book always suffers in these comparisons, and I fear that Seeker was diminished by the high expectations and a fairly stagnant plot that did not provide the answers I was hoping for.
The narration is an issue, for me and others: while the characters show some promise both personally and in their quest / training to become a Seeker, the best definition of that particular position is that they protect the weak, and it is a position of great honor. This nebulous and vagueness continues throughout the story as we follow Quin, Shinobu and John through their training.
Characters have some ‘moments’ that gave me pause: Quin was whingy, a bit spoilt and always complaining – her destiny as a protector made me worry for those who are needing her. John was nothing special, obsessed with his athanne and confused about it’s use. Shinobu was a bit better built with backstory and humor, but the endless pining. Oh. Get. Over. It. I was, early on.
Then there is a love triange, Le Sigh. If Quin weren’t such a pill, I might see the attraction –but as it sits, it felt like another element in the chequebox. Yet, I keep reading on because I’m hoping for answers, and I want to know what a Seeker is, and what is the earth-shattering issue that they are to face.
And I don’t believe that I ever got an answer that felt connected or plausible in this story. Some decent action sequences and well-define perilous moments were highlights, but these mostly appear in the later third of the story, a bit late to solidify or redeem missing connections to characters that are both thinly defined and haphazardly developed.
What emerges is a debut YA high fantasy that was full of promise with great premise, some wonderful ideas for conflict and uniquely imagined elements that are roughly sketched out, none fully developed or described. This leaves the reader slogging through large passages of half-hinted destinies, purposes and scenes that do not serve the over-arching conflict or the many minor plot threads. Too many ideas thrown at readers with no sense that there is a planned conclusion, I didn’t need it in this novel, but the meandering path and sense of author’s confusion about where the story should go, as well as a large inclusion of elements that are placed and often left without explanation left me wanting. I’m on the fence about continuing this series: a new editing team, beta readers and some careful plotting for each character, providing description and answers, and I might consider it.
I received an eArc copy of the title via NetGalley for purpose of honest review. I was not compensated for this review: al conclusions are my own responsibility.