My Review of Witch Song by Amber Argyle

Well today is September 1st and it is Amber Argyle's release day for her debut young adult fantasy novel, Witch Song.  I finished reading this just last night as I was able to purchase a Kindle version of it almost four weeks ahead of the release. When I asked Amber why it got released early, she indicated that there was a problem with people pirating the file which really surprised me. It's a topic I'd love to talk to Amber about one of these days. Maybe I'll get a chance when she goes to a signing scheduled in Layton, Utah (about twenty minutes from where I live) this September.

As far as a debut fantasy novel goes, there are a few new things that I saw here which I thought refreshing.  Her magic system deals a lot with plants.  Witches rely on seeds and they use plants to do all kinds of crazy things. There's even a scene where she talks with a whale and I had flashbacks of the Superfriends and Aquaman telepathically controlling whales.

Anyway, the pacing and writing in the book is solid. Rhemelda Publishing did a bang up job with the formatting--it's excellent.  The swoon-worthy male in this book is Joshen and he's the apple of Senna's eye as it were.  My bone to pick here in their relationship is that there is a point almost in every chapter where Senna pushes Joshen melodramatically out of her life saying that it is too dangerous for him and that she could never live with herself if anything happened.  He of course counters with..."but I'm sworn to protect you...don't push me away...Senna!"  And pretty much that scene gets played over and over and over and over.

Then we have little characters like Pogg who really reminded me of Dobby the House Elf in the Harry Potter films.  He lives on this island and fishes and fetches things, etc.  I thought the character was entirely too cutesty, however, I'm not thirteen which is where I think this book's intended audience may lie.

The novel wraps up all plots cleanly. The climactic battle with the villain of the story and the protagonist was a speed bump as far as battles go...I was disappointed in that.  I guess smacking each other around with plants can't really be all that impressive.  And the way that Espen (the villain) got defeated kinda smacked of deus ex machina but really no more than Aslan going around and fixing everything.

All in all, I give this book four stars (out of five) because I'm not going to rate it with the eyes of a forty-year-old (which I am) who has read everything from Tolkien, to Eddings, to Martin, to Brooks, to Lewis, to Zelazny, to Gaiman, to Alexander, to Kurtz and blah blah blah.  If you are an adult and have kids, buy this book for your kid to read.  Or, buy it for yourself, if you are an adult that loves literature for teens.  That is my recommendation.

A Chapter One Review of 'Witch Song' by Amber Argyle

Amber Argyle's book, Witch Song, is due for release on September 1, 2011 from Rhemalda Publishing. You can find her blog here. The first chapter is up on her website for people to read and review. In one sentence, I love it.

My Review of Chapter One:
Amber's writing is descriptive and her voice is original in what I view as a sea of generic fantasy dominated with male heroes. She introduces us immediately to witches and I understand by the end of the sample chapter that these are powerful women. One of them, Brusenna's mother, has obviously adapted to living in isolation and amongst people that don't like her as a means to hide from a powerful, evil, nasty witch named Espen. I get the impression that Espen is going to be the villain of the story and for good reason...she destroys witches less capable than her.

Amber accomplishes many things in this first chapter. She establishes her characters, the plot, and gives us some fantastic world-building. Her names, Brusenna, Bommer, Tomack, Coyel, and Sacra roll off the tongue as if these should be familiar and I'm comfortable with them by the end of the chapter. However, it's worth mentioning that I've never seen these names before in any other fantasy and I like that about the book. She uses a currency called upice which because of the inclusion of the word "up" makes me associate money with the upper class. Through Brusenna's voice (her main character) I learn how oppressed her family is and that they struggle to provide for themselves in the face of powerful prejudice from the locals. I also love the urgency of Coyel's visit to Sacra to basically lay it all out for Brusenna's mother. It's confrontational and builds conflict. It also turns Brusenna's world upside down at the end. The last sentences are great.

"Circle of Sisters, Keepers, the Dark Witch? Surely her mother had no understanding of such things. Surely she’d lived here for generations.

Hadn’t she?"

It's like Sacra's daughter knew nothing of her mother at all and because you're in her head, it makes you want to turn the page to chapter two. And that, afterall, is the point of great writing.