Absolutely fabulous YA romantasy!
This novel follows Morgana, a female sorcerer, from age five to eighteen as she is trained by the most powerful sorcerers in the kingdom of Adynn at a special school. She learns to master, amplify, and ultimately wield her enormous magical power to save her country from invasion by the evil Vlad Empire, whose armies are powered by terrifying death mages.
Morgana is a fabulous FMC. She is an unfailingly active protagonist, whose motivation stems from compassion, loyalty and bravery throughout this fantastic novel.
The worldbuilding is excellent, especially the delightfully unique take on trolls. I got a complete sense of the universe of this story without being beaten over the head with extraneous details. The story stays focused on Morgana’s personal and magical growth, her significant relationships, and the action-adventure that drives the plot. In only a little more than 200 pages, this novel brilliantly accomplishes what a typical fantasy tome would require 1000 pages to convey. In other words, there is no padding whatsoever in this tightly constructed novel.
Fans of traditional fantasy may stridently disagree with me, but I enjoyed this book far more than A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin (1968). This book is an excellent homage to that famous novel, which is a coming-of-age story (bildungsroman) that explores themes of power, balance, and self-acceptance, as the MMC, Ged, becomes an apprentice of the mage Ogion and attends a wizard school on the island of Roke.
It takes multiple novels to tell Ged's complete story, and I was definitely wondering if JS could actually manage to stick the landing and provide a believable resolution for the central bildungsroman while also including a tender, HEA romance and thrilling action-adventure. For my taste, as an extremely jaded reader, she did an absolutely stellar job!
As far as I am concerned, this is the best book JS has written to date, and she has written many that I have greatly enjoyed.
I place this novel among the top tier of my all-time favorite romantasy, fairytale stories, such as:
Beauty by Robin McKinley (YA)
The 500 Kingdoms series by Mercedes Lackey (adult)
Mistress of the Wind by Michelle Diener (adult)
Books and Broadswords by Jessie Mihalik (adult)
The only element of this novel that might make it slightly PG are the lightly described scenes of war. There is no sex, no swearing, and no abuse of alcohol or drugs. I will definitely be recommending this book to my daughter for my 10-year-old granddaughter. She has been permitted to read the earlier books in the Harry Potter series, which I consider much more violent than this novel.
Finally, my star rating: The publication Romantic Times AKA RT Book Reviews (1981-2018), founded by Kathryn Falk, used a star rating system from 1 to 4.5 stars for reviewing novels. When a book was exceptional, it received a "4.5 stars GOLD" rating, which denoted a phenomenal book "in a class by itself." Since the rating convention now runs from 1 to 5 stars, I tip my hat to Kathryn Falk by rating this book “5 stars GOLD”!