Book Review: Clara

I found this book on Twitter and downloaded this first in the series for free from the author’s website. The Bookfunnel method she uses is legitimate (if you trust someone as sketchy as me to tell you the truth). You can go get this sucker now!

The Book

Clara (Stories of Lorst, Book 1)
Author: Suzanna J. Linton
2013
Website/Bookfunnel Link

This is an epic high fantasy about a woman who is mute. That alone interested me because there’s not many books about people with disabilities, and muteness seems like a difficult one to portray.

Also, author’s from that other, crazy Carolina (South Carolina), so I thought I needed to do some Carolina represent!

Non-Spoiler Review

Overall, I have really weird feelings about this book. First, there was nothing that I found actually wrong about it. The writing was good and consistent over a massive number of words, and it keeps moving along well. The characters were also well done. There was absolutely nothing I could point out as to why someone shouldn’t like this book.

At the same time, I could never find myself entirely interested, and I took way more and longer breaks than I felt like I should have.

I think the problem for me was that it didn’t quite hit the genre that I like. It had a significant romance element that I didn’t expect, and I think I kept wanting it to turn into an intense political intrigue or war story when that simply wasn’t the context the book was supposed to have. There was intrigue and war, but that didn’t seem to be the primary focus or the driver of interest.

Another thing that I look for in books is a main character that does things, not a main character that things happen to. Clara’s life is filled with adventure, but for the vast majority of the book her agency is extremely limited and other characters drive most of the plot. As a result, those who like more character driven stories are probably going to like this more.

So, overall, I’d definitely give this a read if you like indie books and character driven stories. It’s well done, consistent, and the premises are sound.

4/5 Discoball Snowcones

4 Discoball Snowcones

SPOILERS REVIEW

As mentioned earlier, I thought the plot was driven by side characters. Emmerich, Gavin, and Asher all decided what to do, and they pushed and pulled Clara around to commit what they wanted. Granted, her powers of seeing the future were important, but rarely effective for her. They usually saw events for the powerful men in her life.

The overall plot – beyond the falling in love bits – was about Marduk and the stolen throne that Emmerich is trying to get back. Emmerich plans the war, leads the rebellion, and is the charismatic center of the book. He makes a good deuterotagonist and male love interest/lead, but he also seemed to be the main driver of the plot. To me, that left the book somewhat lacking, but it added a romantic element that would have been entirely absent had he been the main character.

One thing that was very well done, however, was the tension about who Clara was going to choose. Would it be Gavin? Emmerich? Which king was the pretender, and whose army was actually working for good? Clara was a good unreliable narrator in this respect.

If you prefer romance, however, I’d encourage you to check this book out and give it a try.