In a world that sounds remarkably like Eastern Europe a
number of centuries ago, seventeen year old Agnieszka knows she’ll be losing
her best friend, Kasia, soon. Kasia is smart, beautiful, and moves with grace.
Agnieszka is clumsy, always manages to get dirty, breaks things, can’t cook or
sew worth a darn, and manages to muck everything up- although she does have a
knack for negotiating the forest without harm and always comes back with something,
be it mushrooms, fruit, firewood, or herbs. This is the year of the Choosing,
when the local wizard known as the Dragon chooses a seventeen year old girl to
take to his tower. She will not be seen again for ten years. The girls, who
claim he never molests them (and they are never believed), never stay in the
valley after they return and do not speak of what happened to them. It’s
important to keep the Dragon happy, because his magic is all that stands
between the area and the Wood. Something evil and greedy lives in the forest-
IS the forest- and it always seeks to expand its territory.
To her surprise, Agnieszka is picked. She goes to live in
the tower- and is surprised to discover that the Dragon is trying to teach her
magic. She has a unique natural talent, linked to the earth, and how it is
expressed creates problems between her and the Dragon. She has reason to need
this new power soon, as warring kingdoms and the Wood create havoc.
I loved this book. I really liked Agnieszka- I can very much
identify with a heroine who constantly gets dirty and rips her clothing! The
way her magic worked had a very authentic ring to it. The snippy, sarcastic
Dragon is kind of an ass at first, but he grew on me a lot. The Wood is a unique
menace and very well done; I found it quite creepy. The style is rather like
that of a fairy tale- one of the darker ones. There are battles, possessions, assassinations,
perilous escapes, horrors, and good things. The ending, when the Wood is
revealed and dealt with, surprised me. I could not put this book down- it’s
over 400 pages and I read it in two days.
I received this book free from the Amazon Vine program in return for a fair review.
The above is an affiliate link. If you click through and buy something, Amazon will give me a few cents.
Neither of these things influenced my review.
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