Hmm. ?áSo far the beginning reminded me of Uprooted and Howl's Moving Castle, with the crotchety secretive wizard and the young girl apprentice. ?áBut Vande Velde has pleased me in the past, so we'll see....

Just checked GR... if I'd realized this is the sequel to Changeling Prince I would not have bothered (to buy it from half.com). ?áNote: Spellbound is omnibus... must skip that. ?áI'd make a series" here, but my only source is GR....

Ok finished... at the end here is an excerpt of Changeling Prince, which is called 'the sequel' to this... ? ... ?áin any case I noticed nothing that persuades me I should have read them together... they each stand alone just fine.

All right. ?áFocus here. ?áGood story. ?áTook some time for me to warm up to it, somehow. ?áI guess I expected the wizard to be a more interesting character. ?áBut Lylene does drop him soon enough. ?á

The idea of the sister rescuing the maiden is awesome. ?áAnd, though Lylene is an interesting character, her companions are much more so, and I would love to learn more about their lives before this adventure. ?áAnd the twist, though I predicted an approximation of it, is apt and nifty.

I probably should give this 3.5 stars, but maybe I'm thinking that only because of the silly cover and because of my confusion with the 'series.' ?áSo, benefit of the doubt, 4 stars. ?á" ( )

I did enjoy The Conjurer Princess, but... I find it strangely hard to remember. I don't know if it's because I was ridiculously busy while I was reading it, or if there's something just unremarkable about this particular story, but it's not all that memorable.

I will say that it wasn't what I expected. I read the first chapter and thought I had the plot figured out, but it didn't do what I thought it would, and it still worked. The characters weren't fantastic, but weren't awful.

Sometimes the writing was confusing, and I had to reread several pages several times before I finally understood. Again, I don't know if this is because I've had other things on my mind, or if it really is just confusing.

Basically, it's a cool fantasy adventure, but there's nothing all that special about it. ( )

http://tamaranth.blogspot.com/2010/03/201027-conjurer-princess-vivian-vande.html ( )