Rate this book

The Sentinel Mage (2011)

by Emily Gee(Favorite Author)

3.71 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

1907519505 (ISBN13: 9781907519505)

languge

English

genre

Romance

publisher

Solaris

series

The Cursed Kingdoms

review 1: I've enjoyed Emily Gee's other books and I liked this one just as much! This one centres on a curse that needs a prince with mage blood in him to stop it from destroying the world. Unfortunately the prince was raised in a land where magic and those that wield it are both feared and reviled. So this story follows the prince and the mages on their uneasy journey and also the fate of the prince's sister left behind to contend with an abusive, vindictive father. Both the main story and the secondary story left me wanting to find out more about what happens with these uneasy allies and a princess used for her father's gain.
review 2: This was my first foray into the works of Emily Gee, and I have to say that it has encouraged me to add her to the list of authors who... morese writing I enjoy. The story is not hugely original: ancient curse, chosen but reluctant saviour who embarks on the quest to save the world only after suffering a terrible loss, magic powers passed down by blood, court intrigues, (so far) one sided romantic attractions, these have all been staples of the fantasy genre since its invention. The most unusual factor in the book's basic premise is the fact that the heroine, who even very early on in this book is being clearly set up as a future love interest for the reluctant saviour hero, spends a fare amount of the book using her powers to masquerade as a man (feminists of the world would no doubt leap on this fact and decry the book as promoting masculine dominion over downtrodden women everywhere, the LGBT community, on the other hand, may offer a more positive spin). Nevertheless that does not detract from the fact that this is a good story. The world and characters are well realised, and through the course of the book given a reasonable sense of history through stories and legends told by the characters as well as anecdotes about where they come from, people they've known and so on. That is not to say, however, that Gee spends pages and pages developing her world with long sections of exposition, almost every detail is related in some way to the main plot, or its relation is justified by the situation. The plot itself is diverse and reasonably well balanced between action, intrigue, romance and the inevitable travelling scenes that have to happen when your characters' primary method of getting around in the world is either on foot or by horse (although Gee does well to ensure that this last element does not get too dull by using such scenes as opportunities to develop her characters and their relationships with one another). Personally I look forward to the next installment in this trilogy, and I recommend this part to anyone that likes the works of J. R. R. Tolkien, Gail Z. and George R. R. Martin, Robert Jordan or Terry Goodkind. While not quite in the same vein, it is similar enough to be enjoyable. less

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