Happy New Year, everyone!
OK, I didn’t quite get to the three books I’d hoped to get to at the end of 2014. But the good news about that is that I can now review one of them as my first post of 2015 instead. (See how that works?) And since it’s Romance Saturday, it seems fitting that one of those three books just so happens to be a YA fantasy/romance.
THE PERILOUS SEA, a YA fantasy/romance by Sherry Thomas, stars Iolanthe Seabourne, an elemental mage who has command over all four elements — Air, Fire, Earth and Water, and Prince Titus of Elberon. Their adventures started in book one, THE BURNING SKY (reviewed here), so take it as read that they’re still mostly hiding out in 19th Century England and pretending to be normal teenagers at non-magical Eton. Of course, this may be seen as a bit of a problem by some as Iolanthe is decidedly female and Eton historically admitted boys. But because Iolanthe needs to be hidden as well as possible, she’s hiding under the male name of Archer Fairfax.
Of course, Iolanthe is a smart young woman, and she out-does the boys in nearly every conceivable way, including Greek, Latin, and other pursuits. And as long as no one looks for her, she’ll be well-hidden indeed…but she has to stay on point, use her magic sparingly (and only to help her pass for male), lest she and the Prince be discovered by agents of the nasty Atlantis — an all-devouring country of magicians which has thus far shown no compunction at getting its own way.
For some reason, they want Prince Titus’s realm of Elberon to remain under their subjugation, and have done a great deal toward keeping things that way. There’s an immortal sorcerer by the name of “the Bane” that has a great deal to do with this — think of him more as a coercive enforcer than a traditional sorcerer and you’re not far wrong — and in book one, both Prince Titus and Iolanthe were trying to figure out just why the Bane cared so much to maintain the status quo.
Anyway, THE PERILOUS SEA starts out with a young woman, name unknown, lost somewhere in the desert. (Of course this is Iolanthe, but she doesn’t know it at the time.) Somehow, she’s lost her memory, but remembers that she does have magic and that the dread mages of Atlantis are after her.
Of course she runs into a young man, who also doesn’t know his name, while out in the middle of that desert. (This, of course, is Prince Titus. I don’t think I’m giving much away by admitting this, either, as this is a fantasy romance and the first two people you meet are often the lovers of the story by convention.) And because he doesn’t remember anything, either, except that the terrifying mages of Atlantis are after him, he doesn’t exactly warm to Iolanthe right away.
Intermixed with chapters with our unnamed hero and heroine are chapters back at Eton. One of the Prince’s friends, Wintervale, isn’t acting like himself after nearly being lost at sea. No one’s sure why, and any magic used around him seems to be reacting in a quite unpredictable manner. Worse yet, the Prince discovers that some of the prophecies that helped him find and save Iolanthe earlier may not be correct — which makes him wonder if Iolanthe, much though he loves her, is truly the prophesied heroine.
Again, take it as read that our hero and heroine will find a way to be together because of the conventions of the genre. I think you’ll enjoy all of that, but I don’t want to spoil your reading pleasure so I’ll stop there with the plot summary. (Normally I’d try to finesse my way around this, but I’ve got bigger fish to fry.) So the bigger questions remain these:
- What is going on with Wintervale?
- Why have the prophecies gone so wonky?
- Why does Atlantis care so much about Elberon in the first place?
- Who really fathered the Prince?
- Who really fathered — much less mothered — Iolanthe, perhaps the most puissant mage of her generation?
- And finally, how are Iolanthe and Prince Titus going to throw Atlantis back out of Elberon so they can return to England sometime in the future without fear of discovery? (As they have many, many friends there, it would seem that’s a decent question to ask.)
Some of these questions are answered, only to raise bigger questions that will presumably be answered in Book 3 (as yet unnamed as far as I can discern). Some are still unanswered, but in a way that makes you think Iolanthe and Prince Titus are on the verge of truly finding out just why Atlantis is so interested in Elberon, much less themselves…and that as soon as they figure it out, they will successfully throw Atlantis out of Elberon once and for all.
Bottom line? If you enjoy YA fantasies, YA romance, or any combination of the two, do not miss THE PERILOUS SEA. It’s a fun, fast, fully developed epic fantasy that has a fully believable romance right along with it that’s intrinsic to the plot — and all of it works extremely well. (Brava!)
Grade: A.
–reviewed by Barb
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