Hardcover
Published February 28th 2012 by Bloomsbury USA Children’s Books
Source: Net GalleySynopsis:
For star-crossed lovers Nimira and Erris, there can be no happily ever after until Erris is freed from the clockwork form in which his soul is trapped. And so they go in search of the sorcerer Ordorio Valdana, hoping he will know how to grant Erris real life again. When they learn that Valdana has mysteriously vanished, it’s not long before Nimira decides to take matters into her own hands—and begins to study the sorcerer’s spell books in secret. Yet even as she begins to understand the power and limitations of sorcery, it becomes clear that freeing Erris will bring danger—if not out-and-out war—as factions within the faerie world are prepared to stop at nothing to prevent him from regaining the throne.
Review:
I truly liked the first book in this series. The idea of being in love with the soul of a person rather than the physical body was just such a novel concept that it immediately drew me in. The first novel, too, was an enchanting mix of the quixotic with old world, traditional storylines. You know, fairy kings, dastardly villains, a dancer girl, a Jane Eyresque romance story – so you can understand why I was so keen to check out Magic Under Stone. I felt that I would be in store for another installment of the loveliness that so enchanted me in the first novel. Unfortunately, I didn’t get that. Nimira didn’t just not retain the charm she had in the first book, she went one step ahead and became one of the most annoying, self-absorbed protagonists I have had the misfortune of reading. Her treatment of Erris’s niece turned me off completely and I really don’t understand what happened.
Erris becomes a cardboard character – in fact, the entire novel felt to me a series of incidences forcibly linked together to create a facsimile of a continuous narrative. Me no gusta. I don’t know whether it is me who has changed as a reader or it is the writing in the book that has changed. I just found Nimi’s whining about Erris’s inability to move their relationship into a physical realm grating as well as her “flirting” with her ex-fiance. But don’t trust my word for it, make up your mind. I am sure there are other people who liked it and perhaps they’d offer you a better look into it. I, however, did not find it to my liking.
