A Woman Worth Ten Coppers, Morgan Howell
well, what is there to say? i really wasn't expecting it to be good, and that it exceeded my initial expectation isn't surprising then. but it was pretty refreshing to read something good again, and actually, i liked it rather so well i don't know if there is much to type about it.
the characters don't particularly stand out, but they certainly make a nice contrast to each other. the world-building was what interested me; the name yim initially turned me off, because it sounds like "salt" in chinese and it's close to "yam" in english. the names in this world are vaguely latin, and the magic system isn't anything new really.. so what is it about this that was so refreshing? that's what i can't get figured out :T
maybe i was just in the right mood for this type of fantasy, but i sincerely believe there was something really exceptional about this book. i just can't pinpoint what. the relationship between yim and honus is realistic, but then again, yim acts somewhat out of character near the end of the book; i guess it could be just the author trying to tie things up as neatly as possible. all in all, this book acts only as a good setup for a continuing storyline, but nonetheless it does so in a way that keeps me excited about what's to come. the scenes of yim using her powers are somewhat few and far between, but when they come the author makes her seem quite genuinely powerful, and so despite the lack of action it went for good badass...ness. that said, it wasn't entirely without action, and honus seems badass in his own right. i was only confused about HOW exactly he'd fallen in love with yim? that was the single thing that felt rather abrupt and underdeveloped, because so much of it was devoted to world-building.
now it makes me want to go and read morgan howell's orc queen series. it does sound like it would be quite good, but maybe i read them out of sequence? from what i read on the author's site, this series takes place two hundred years after the orc queen series.. but i'll end up reading them anyway, so i'll try to dig those out of the pile and check them out.
