Jessamine

by Barbara G. Tarn

In the fantasy world of Silvery Earth, a young queen has to learn the hard way how to live and reign. This is the story of Queen Jessamine, from her Rite night at fourteen to war and exile, prisoner of a foreign king, to her comeback to her home country some thirteen years later. Not much magic, but not our planet anyway. Adult readers for mild sex and violence.

Genres: Fantasy

38 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 8, 2011

About the author

Barbara G.Tarn prefers to add a touch of fantasy to all her stories, past and present – when she’s not wandering on her high fantasy world of Silvery Earth or in her space opera Star Minds Universe. She dabbles into historical fantasy with her Vampires through the Centuries series and into post-apocalyptic/steampunk with Future Earth Chronicles – with some titles overlapping. Ghost Bus Riders is contemporary fantasy with elemental magic and Otherside is a portal fantasy leading to a steampunk world. Immortaland is high fantasy in a brand new world of dragons and magic.
Her stories were published in Pulphouse Magazine, The Phantom Games: Dimensions Unknown 2020, Halloween Harvest, Crunchy with Chocolate, Blaze Ward Presents, Cutter's Final Cut and more to come.
Find her books at: https://www.upbpublishing.com/

Reviews

[Cassie McCown · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jessamine
By: Barbara G. Tarn
ISBN: 2940011179839
Published January 8, 2011
Available Format: ebook
Graphic Novel ISBN: 2940011316982
GN Published May 26, 2011

My Rating: ★★★★☆

I’ve decided to kill two birds with one stone here, since these are both the same story in different formats.

Jessamine is an Amazonian princess in the fantasy world of Silvery Earth. In this society, the girls begin their sexual education at the young age of fourteen through a ceremonial union with a masked male. Jessamine decides to devote herself to this young man and sets out to discover his true identity. Soon, the young princess becomes queen and her world is shaken with war and violence. Jessamine must learn how to survive and reign over her people to the best of her ability through it all.

If you want a strong, take no prisoners heroine, you have one in Jessamine! Even at such a young age, she has a solid sense of identity and boldly sets out to get exactly what she wants. This most definitely carries over into her adult life as she becomes queen and is taken prisoner by a foreign king. She faces heartache that could absolutely destroy a person, but she finds herself even more resilient on the other side of her struggles. And who doesn’t like a world that is dominated by powerful women?!?

I read the story before I had a look at the graphic novel. I have to say that I probably enjoyed the comic a bit more than the prose, but I think the overall tale is really intriguing. I just really wish there were more detail! This is my first foray into Silvery Earth, and I am dying to learn all about the magical world and everyone within. Thankfully, I have lots of Barb’s stories to check out, and I am lucky enough to get to work with her on some upcoming work too!

This is a great, quick read for anyone looking for a brief escape. It is recommended for more mature readers due to the violent and sexual content.

[Eliabeth Hawthorne · Rating 1 out of 5]

I grabbed this book completely impulsively because it was free on Amazon (and it had a pretty cover). Looking back, I'm not even sure I read the synopsis because I was completely uncomfortable with a fourteen year old losing her virginity in the opening scene and then taking a 25 year old lover a few pages later. While the latter was her choice, and she was not protesting the Rite, all I could think about were the Girls Not Brides and Girl Effect campaigns I support.

Then she's taken prisoner, rapped and impregnated by a man who thinks he loves her. While I hope that was commentary from the POV of the rapist, and not the author, the concept that kidnapping, keeping someone in a cage, and rapping them but also being doting and not looking when they change clothes is not the same love, did not come up in the book. It gave me an uncomfortable prickle.

It was almost a two star read. The writing, ignoring the content, was well written, well edited, and well formatted. I couldn't justify a 1 star review until the end. When Jessamine is freed and returns home, she faces her attacker in the arena. She is supposed to be an Amazon warrior, and he has been kept in a cage without much food or water for days, beaten, dragged around, and abused, but he "lets her kill him." I could have pulled my hair out. Jessamine resisted Stockholm syndrom for four years in his capture and defies him in various ways during her captivity, but the author can't let her kill him outright.

Ugh.

1 star

[Cassie McCown · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jessamine
By: Barbara G. Tarn
ISBN: 2940011179839
Published January 8, 2011
Available Format: ebook
Graphic Novel ISBN: 2940011316982
GN Published May 26, 2011

My Rating: ★★★★☆

I’ve decided to kill two birds with one stone here, since these are both the same story in different formats.

Jessamine is an Amazonian princess in the fantasy world of Silvery Earth. In this society, the girls begin their sexual education at the young age of fourteen through a ceremonial union with a masked male. Jessamine decides to devote herself to this young man and sets out to discover his true identity. Soon, the young princess becomes queen and her world is shaken with war and violence. Jessamine must learn how to survive and reign over her people to the best of her ability through it all.

If you want a strong, take no prisoners heroine, you have one in Jessamine! Even at such a young age, she has a solid sense of identity and boldly sets out to get exactly what she wants. This most definitely carries over into her adult life as she becomes queen and is taken prisoner by a foreign king. She faces heartache that could absolutely destroy a person, but she finds herself even more resilient on the other side of her struggles. And who doesn’t like a world that is dominated by powerful women?!?

I read the story before I had a look at the graphic novel. I have to say that I probably enjoyed the comic a bit more than the prose, but I think the overall tale is really intriguing. I just really wish there were more detail! This is my first foray into Silvery Earth, and I am dying to learn all about the magical world and everyone within. Thankfully, I have lots of Barb’s stories to check out, and I am lucky enough to get to work with her on some upcoming work too!

This is a great, quick read for anyone looking for a brief escape. It is recommended for more mature readers due to the violent and sexual content.

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

This short, highly compressed book is much like an impressionist painting. The writing has the charming qualities of a nicely re-told folktale. A gently told story about places and characters we should know from fairy tales; from dreams of childhood; it seems plucked from the depths of our collective culture. The milieu seems familiar to us. And yet, looking more closely, the world here hides more sober realities -- pleasures and cruelties hinted and whispered, or tossed off as if unimportant, and obvious. The country of the Amazons is like a partially obscured mirror image of Renaissance Europe or the Middle East, perhaps: a place run by women who keep their men modestly clothed and subjugated in the harem -- with as little regard for their desires, accomplishments, and skills as European men of a bygone age had, perhaps for those of their women. Here, sexuality is expressed unabashedly, as well -- the male chattel used at the whims of their superiors.

We hold the half-silvered mirror up and peer both into it and through it viewing this world painted with broad, gentle brush strokes; moving the glass here and there, occasionally squinting, filling in details that the painting itself leaves to our imaginations.

While there is much to like about this work, I'm usually looking for more detail, and to be honest more sprawl in a novel, so this felt extremely compressed, and at times abbreviated. But that, too, will do very well, and is part of its charm. Some hours spent in pleasant enchantment; and I'll do it again, with another of Ms Tarn's books.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not at all what I was expecting based on the rather flowery cover (Reminder to self: remember not to judge a book by it's cover or movie) but this was a pleasant surprise. We follow Jess through her early life, from 14 to 27 I believe (don't worry, not in complete detail) and we see her loves, struggles, heartbreaks, and triumphs as she grabs the reins of her life and firmly leads forward. Like that last phrase? Just made it up in my head. Not sure about it yet. She has (think think think) six? children with three men, two of whom die, and the promise of more children with another man. Some of her choices I didn't like, such as whom she eventually marries, but it was understandable for a women of her rank and in her position. Loved the revenge scene with the neighboring king, but felt kinda bad for Kelver?. I liked his character, he brought out my maternal instinct. I wanted to protect him from the mean lady who didn't understand that he loved her in his own kinda way. Not the right way necessarily. Just his way. Hmm, last guy was blonde so felt no compulsion at all to care about him at all but that's one of my own foibles. All in all, a decent read from an indie (I assume) author. Might get more of her stuff in the future. 3 and 1/2 stars

[Lydia]

Thhhq

[Katy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved the book - the idea of the matriarchal society and Amazon structure appealed to me - so I wanted to read the graphic novel as well. Very nice - recommended!