The world is certainly imaginative. The women of Alta hames have the power to call forth their dark sisters from the other side of the mirror, sisters who are them and not them at the same time. Learning the culture of the hame was a large draw of the book for me. I got into it, and I enjoyed being in that world.
What I didn't like is how the book is divided up into sections - Legend, Myth, History, Song, Ballad ... These sections add little, if anything, to the story itself and mostly served to pull me out of the narrative. I didn't care about the historical analysis of the Alta women from 700 years in the future. I didn't care about a song written about the events I had just read. I didn't care about a legend that foretold what I was about to read. I just wanted to read the story without being interrupted by extraneous information.
After a couple chapters I just skipped over the extra sections, making an already short book (about 200 pages) even shorter, which brings me to the second thing that annoyed me a little. This is the first book in a two-book story that could have easily been combined into one. Not only is the book short, but it has the same issue I felt with Star of the Morning, which is this book by itself does not tell a complete story. The plot really only picks up at the end with what really should be the middle of the book or just before it.
This first book, really is just set up for the next one, and I just take issues with stories that are published like this. One book, should tell one complete story, in my opinion. It can have lose ends. Questions can be left unanswered. But there needs to be a rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution. This book doesn't have that. It's all just rising action. And that bothers me.
So, it gets three stars because I found the book itself to be lacking. But I do plan on continuing on to the next book.
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