Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Fortune and Fate by Sharon Shinn

"For the Rider Wen, peace in Gillengaria has only brought despair. Plagued by guilt for failing to protect her king, Wen has fled the royal city and given herself the penance of a life of wandering, helping strangers in need, making sure they remain just that: strangers. Until the day she helps a terrified young woman abducted by an overeager suitor. The girl, she discovers, is the daughter of one of those who rose against the dead king, and is now heir to the great estate known as Fortune. Once she has delivered her safely home, Wen wants nothing further to do with the girl or her family. But fate has other plans...For behind the walls of Fortune, Wen will find her future - and she will finally confront the ghosts of her past.

Sigh. I guess I went into Fortune and Fate with high expectations, and was kind of disappointed. While I was reading Reader and Raelynx I knew that Wen would be the main character of Fortune and Fate, so I tried to pay a little more attention to her in R&R, and was kind of curious to see what her story would hold. This story picks up two years after the final war in R&R, following Wen on her journey of self-discovery. She has passed her time saving anyone she comes across on her aimless travels. That is how she meets up with Karryn, a serramarra who has been kidnapped. Once Wen saves the day she soon takes up a job working as Karryn’s professional guard.

Wen’s character just didn’t do anything for me. She was too manish, and had no famine qualities at all. She was all business all the time and for me was a bit too harsh. Senneth, Kirra, Amalie and Ellynor all are powerful, strong women and still they are women. You can see that they each have their own charm and still maintain a certain amount of femininity. Wen is just too much a tomboy for my taste. I just couldn’t relate to her. And as for her relationship with Jasper, I have only one word…yawn. I didn’t feel any chemistry between the two, and frankly I don’t really see what he sees in her.

I love the Twelve House series and will probably consider R&R the final book in the series and this more of a companion novel. I just didn’t really see the point of this book. Maybe if she had placed the story way in the future with all new characters it would have been different, but for me it was missing the magic of the other books.

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