The Diviner

Golden Key #0

by Melanie Rawn, Gordon Crabb (Illustrator)

Bestselling author Melanie Rawn's triumphant return to high fantasy.

The only survivor of royal treachery that eliminates his entire family, Azzad al-Ma'aliq flees to the desert and dedicates himself to vengeance. With the help of the Shagara, a nomadic tribe of powerful magicians, he begins to take his revenge-but at a terrible cost to himself.

Prequel novel to The Golden Key.

Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, High Fantasy, Epic Fantasy, Science Fiction Fantasy, Sword and Sorcery, Magic

370 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 2011

About the author

Melanie Rawn received a BA in history from Scripps College and worked as a teacher and editor before becoming a writer.

She has been nominated for a Locus award on three separate occasions: in 1989 for Dragon Prince (in the first novel category), in 1994 for Skybowl (in the fantasy novel category), and again in 1995 for Ruins of Ambrai (in the fantasy novel category).

Reviews

[Brandon Zarzyczny · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book, and at times I did, but it was ultimately extremely flawed. To me, it seems like the author created an outline of everything she wanted to happen in this prequel story, and then wrote around the outline to fill it out. Throughout the book thousands of people are killed, including several main characters. However, not once did I feel any emotion at their deaths other than annoyance. The writing is relatively well done within the chapters, but when 20 years can pass between 1 chapter, it completely takes you out of the story. It reads almost like a history book, with certain important events described fully from the viewpoint of one of the important historical figures. The author loved introducing one young character from each new generation, letting you learn who he is and possibly liking him, then jumping multiple years (denoted by a 1 to 2 paragraph summary), seeing what happened to him, then killing him off. It was just so frustrating to read, and ultimately it took me a much longer time to read than a book usually does. The Diviner just left me frustrated and annoyed after reading it, the book was an interesting read, but it lacked the soul and good book needs.

[Alsha · Rating 4 out of 5]

I genuinely enjoyed this one. I think it helped that I knew to expect the many sudden section breaks and time jumps. As a result, I could enjoy the rich and deftly woven writing from an author I still consider one of my favourites. High fantasy threaded with complex politics, vivid world-building, layered characters, and intergenerational sagas is definitely her strength and I still daydream that one day she’ll come back to writing more of it.

[Metaphorosis · Rating 3 out of 5]

I encountered Melanie Rawn via her debut novel, Dragon Prince, and was thrilled to find her bringing fantasy romance to life as few but Mary Stewart and M.K. Wren have managed to do. I devoured that thick book, the rest of that trilogy, and the successor Dragon Star trilogy. I picked up the first two books of the Exiles trilogy as soon as they came out, and have been waiting in frustration for The Captal's Tower ever since (over 15 years now, in case you think I'm impatient).

I picked up her collaboration The Golden Key (with Kate Elliott and Jennifer Roberson), but didn't think much of it. Still, when I saw this book in a discount store, I picked it up, thinking "Hey, she hasn't written the book I'm waiting for, but she's still writing. Let's see what there is."

The Diviner is a solo-author prequel to The Golden Key. It's placed in a faux Middle-Eastern setting that's alternately nicely and awkwardly handled. The story purports to describe cultures with powerful females, but sees them through the eyes of three generations of men, who also seem to do pretty well for themselves.

Rawn remains a good stylist, and the three viewpoint characters are nicely distinct. At the same time, the book is choppy and in some places cursory. Dramatic actions come and go, and while I give Rawn credit for focusing more on people than events, these are the people leading or causing the events, and it sometimes feels like they're not paying attention. The book would also have benefited greatly from a map. There are so many tribes, names, and places mentioned that it's hard to keep track of, especially since I, at least, couldn't line them up with real places. A genealogical chart would have helped too - I also had trouble remembering who was related to whom, and eventually gave up.

Finally, near the every end of the book, we get to the set up for The Golden Key. This part was genuinely interesting, but it felt like the other 300 pages were a vastly overextended lead in. I give Ms. Rawn credit for trying to make the story stand on its own, and be more than just a prequel. For me, it didn't really work. The other material just wasn't interesting enough. The very end of the story provides a decent wrapup that strengthens this as a standalone novel, but it's not sufficient. I strongly recommend reading The Golden Key in advance if you want to get full value from The Diviner.

Overall, nicely written, but not tremendously engaging. If you loved The Golden Key, you'll want to read this. Otherwise, this is interesting but not really recommended.

[Crystal Sarakas · Rating 2 out of 5]

For me, The Diviner fell short, in part, because of the love I have for the Sunrunner books. I know that Melanie Rawn can write huge, cast-of-thousands, heartwrenching, gutpunching, soul-soaring books... and this fell lamentably short of the heights she has achieved before.

The writing here is solid; the world-building is excellent. The trouble is that the characters are just ... words on a page. They never come to life for me. It reads as an interesting history, and I enjoyed the cultural creation and setting very much (I am so done with the pseudo-European settings for high fantasy), but as a whole, it just never grabbed me. This is unfortunate as I very much enjoyed the first part of the book.

Possibly spoiler alert (no names mentioned, but details)... There are a couple of character deaths, and instead of feeling those deaths were shocking or sad, I just felt annoyance because she was changing horses mid-stream and not continuing on with the story I was interested and invested in. Honestly, I think she could have written this story in greater detail, possibly even over two books, and done so much better. She would have had time to give us the emotional layers and nuances that she has done so well at in other stories.

[Cate · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yes! YES!! THIS is the Melanie Rawn I've been waiting not-so-patiently for! Epic storylines spanning generations, flawed heroes, political intrique, lush cultures, humor, romance--all the things we love Melanie for. And the END! All I'll say is it was so subtlely done that it took me a few pages to realized what happened-and it gave me chills. This is definitely a case of run-don't-walk.

[Aldi · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Diviner is a halfway-there book. It's far superior to the cringeworthy cheesefest of the Spellbinder novels, but it's also a far cry from MR's epic classic fantasy works, including Golden Key, to which this is the prequel. It doesn't lack potential; I greatly enjoyed the Arabic-type setting and the writing was as rich and evocative as I'm used to from MR. It was cool to see the very early seeds of the magic system we know from Golden Key, and get to see how it developed across the generations. I also liked the characters and story, or what glimpses we got of them.

Because that's the thing: Reading this book made me feel like trying to go for a nice immersive swim in an awesome lake only to discover that the lake is a river and the current is way too fast for me to do anything but dip my toes in. MR skips generations and events faster than you can blink. I was prepared for the generation skips between the three main sections of the book. That was the structure and I would've been fine with that; after all, MR has proven before that she does time skips pretty well. In this book, though, she uses snippets of fictional history accounts bookending each chapter to skip more time: You'll get to the end of a chapter all caught up in the action or whatever great event the chapter has been building up to, only to have that event and a sizable chunk of time blithely wrapped up in a one-paragraph note, like, "The war was epic, lots of people died, including the main character's entire family and, oh yeah, the main character himself."

I felt that was pretty lazy writing to start with, but then she also skips loads of time within the narration itself, going from one normal scene of dialogue and action to something like "That year such-and-such got married and a few years later had children, and meanwhile they conquered that country that they'd been talking of conquering and that you sort of expected to be part of the plot, but nope! Summary! All done." There are any number of events that sound awesome and characters who sound like people you want to meet and get invested in but so many of them are dealt with off-screen, deus-ex-machina'd in when convenient and back out when no longer needed.

So between those three kinds of time-skipping and summarising and shortening, all we really get is snippets. I'm well familiar with books that get too caught up in covering every detail and become way too bloated, but this is the opposite problem. I fully concur with those reviewers who said this reads like an outline. It felt to me like she'd written a number of actual fleshed-out scenes (all of which were good) but then got impatient and figured she couldn't be bothered with fleshing out the rest into actual narration and just wrote up a bunch of "And then this and that happened" summaries to stitch them up. Which just feels clumsy and lame, because she can totally do better.

As a result, I found it difficult to actually relate to characters or care about events in this book, particularly for the first two thirds of it. It all just whizzed by too quickly. Occasionally I'd get swept up in an event or a setting (her descriptions - again, when she bothered with them - were lush and awesome as ever) but before I could get really into it, whooosh! Summary! Done! It read as much like a history book of a fictional nation, with occasional novel-like dramatised scenes thrown in, as it did a novel occasionally employing the medium of a historical account.

The third and last (and incidentally shortest) part was actually a lot less fractured; although it had time skips too and I wished she'd covered more of the skipped portions, it was more of a cohesive narration and felt like we spent long enough with the characters to let me get invested. The ending had me genuinely moved and was quite the nifty bridge to the events of Golden Key.

In conclusion, I did enjoy this, I just wish there'd been more of it, and not in that perfect balance of "always leave them wanting more". It felt a bit like reading an early version of a very cool trilogy of books in my hands, a version that was just not done yet. I understand this wasn't supposed to be a trilogy, and I get that it needed to cover several generations in order to get the historical scope the plot required, but I don't think it worked in this format. I'd have loved to read this story without the inbuilt fast-forward button, because it is a good one.

[Sally · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the old Melanie Rawn I loved to read: something expansive, that spans generations, with good guys that are flawed like any human. It's been so long since I've read "The Golden Key" it was hard to remember how these characters would tie in. But this stood on it's own with no problem. I liked the characters, liked the unexpected twists, liked that I wasn't sure how it would end.

Now any chance that "The Captal's Tower" will be written soon?

[Rich Stoehr · Rating 4 out of 5]

No bones about it - The Diviner was a long time coming - 15 years and change for fans of The Golden Key to wait to get more of the story. The good news for those fans is, it was worth the wait.

As a prequel, The Diviner doesn't rely on the events of The Golden Key much. It reads very much like a well-written history, even interspersed with excerpts of biographies of the main characters, slightly dry in places but with enough intrigue to keep it interesting all the way through. And the promise of magic, bound to ink and metalwork, is the foundation for it all.

The story spans generations, focusing first on Azzad, whose entire bloodline is wiped out at the whim of a jealous ruler. His promise of vengeance requires patience, persistence and risk. He is succeeded by Alessid, who sees Azzad as a fool and ruthlessly focuses his life on completing what Azzad started, sacrificing many to his cause. Finally there is Qamar, years distant from Azzad but similar in spirit, who sees the cycle of death and vengeance come around again and seeks to end it in a new way - by creating a new type of magic.

On the surface, The Diviner is the story of wars and vendettas and the web of people caught up in their wake. But really, it's the story of the evolution of magic and the dedication to bring new life to old ways, the discovery of the union of science and craft and blood to create power.

For those who read The Golden Key, the end of The Diviner is where it really comes into its own, as we start to hear familiar names like Grijalva and Zario, and see the quickenings of the magic and art that form the backbone of The Golden Key. For those who haven't read the older book, there may seem like there's a lot more story to be told here - and believe me, there is.

The Diviner can be read on its own, without having read The Golden Key first, but it will likely leave you wanting more. If so, The Golden Key is highly recommended to continue the story. For those of us who have read it already, The Diviner fills in a lot of mysteries around the original, tells an epic story, and represents a satisfying return to form for a favorite writer of fantasy.

Fifteen years, and still worth the wait. Well done.

[April · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very good book but I am sure that many people won't enjoy it as much as I did.

It read very much like a sped up history lesson (in fact, at some points I felt that time was a bit malleable with people's ages not seeming to match up correctly but I didn't care enough to go back and count to see if it was just my feeling or if it truly didn't fit into the timeline). The first two thirds of the book follow two characters, the second being the son of the first. The final third of the book is where everything comes together with the third character, who is the great-grandson of the first.

Until the very last portion of that final third of the book, I had no idea how this book could be a prequel to The Golden Key. Then, however, I found myself nodding and understanding where the narrative was taking me - a history of how the magic in The Golden Key began.

When I first read The Golden Key, all those years ago, I LOVED it. I haven't gone back to re-read it since so I don't know how I'll react to it the second time around, especially after having read this prequel.

The Diviner can definitely be read as a stand alone but because it is mostly a history, it sort of plods along without a great deal happening on screen which makes it not as exciting as some would wish it.

[Anne · Rating 1 out of 5]

The setting is beautiful. That said, the characters never came to life for me. There were too many passages when the author condensed the years leading up to a significant event. Too much telling. And I just didn't like any of the characters. They all seem too power hungry or vengeful.

I'm so disappointed because I really want to love this book. It been a long time since I like any of her fantasy books after the Dragon Price, Dragon Star, and Exiles series. Or maybe I'm still mad that after waiting 14 years, she still haven't finished the Exiles series.

[Ken Richards · Rating 4 out of 5]

Many years ago I read and thoroughly enjoyed, a brilliant fantasy novel written by Melanie Rawn, Kate Elliot and Jennifer Robinson called 'The Golden Key' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gold...

So it was with great pleasure I encountered and borrowed a prequel, 'The Diviner', in which Melanie Rawn provides the story of how the 'Grijalva' gift was born.

I was not disappointed.

[S.B. (Beauty in Ruins) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although the writing is stellar, and there are definite touches of the old Melanie Rawn here, the story suffers from the same problem as The Golden Key (to which it is a prequel). Both are multi-generational epics, with a focus on families, as opposed to a single protagonist. In that sense, The Diviner is really two books, with a rather abrupt change of both plot and pace about halfway through, as Azzad al-Ma'aliq gives way to his son, Alessid.

The problem is that the son cannot hold a candle to his father, either in personality or deeds. Azzad is a wonderful character, a man who rises above his flaws to become more than just means of retribution. He develops as he matures, exposing hidden facets of his personality that make him more endearing as the story progresses. I loved him as a hero, as a father, as a husband, and as a warrior. He is, without a doubt, one of Melanie’s strongest characters.

It’s just a shame the book couldn’t remain focussed on him.

Alessid, by contrast, is entirely unlikable from the start, and what limited development he displays is, unfortunately, in the wrong direction. I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt at first, understanding where he’s come from and what kind of legacy he’s inherited, but he was a disappointment. I neither liked nor respected him, and every time he disparaged his father’s memory (which is far too often), he simply reminded me of the gulf between the two.

In all fairness, Azzad’s half of the novel was the far more interesting story, briskly paced, and interspersed with a few moments of reflection. I cared about what was happening, and I found myself anxiously turning pages, desperate to know what would happen next. Alessid’s half of the novel was far less interesting, sluggishly paced, and bogged down with far too many marriages, births, and alliances. Instead of being anxious to find out what happens next, I found myself desperately flipping through pages, hoping to pick up a thread of story that would pull me back in.

It’s a shame Melanie couldn’t maintain the magic of the first half, because there’s a lot about the story to like. If she could have just given us more of the Sheyqa Nizzira, the truly chilling, scene-chewing villainess behind Azzad’s flight into the desert, maybe there would have been no need to dwell on Alessid. Unfortunately, once we get beyond the bloodbath that begins the novel, she ceases to be anything other than a name, a title, a character who exists off-the-page as a focal point for vengeance. She had such promise - I would have really loved to explore her more.

Characters and plotting aside, the Middle East flavouring is a nice change of pace from the typical European fantasy setting, and I loved exploring the origins of the magic that made The Golden Key so enthralling. There were some really nice stylistic touches here, and the quality of the writing itself is full of hints and promises of a return to form for Melanie. I’d like to think this was just a contractual obligation she forced herself through, to give her the freedom to do something new. Time will tell, but here’s hoping her new trilogy follows through on that promise of a return to form, and once again demonstrates the love for her material that seemed lacking here.

[Louise · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this but was left confused at times, having read the Golden Key it was good to get some more background though I still felt there was something missing.

[Lani · Rating 3 out of 5]

From any other author this would probably have gotten another star. But Melanie Rawn has set my sights so high for her work that when it falters, I hold her much more accountable. That said, this is leaps and bounds better than the last couple of books she's written and I hope she's learned that she needs to stick to the high fantasy stuff and drop her recent attempts at paranormal romance.

I had no idea this book had come out, and didn't even bother reading a summary when I saw it on the Kindle. So imagine my surprise when I started recognizing little elements of a favorite book of mine, The Golden Key. At first I thought that Rawn was just lazy and was annoyed by her cribbing elements from another story until it slowly became more apparent that this is actually a prequel! This is what I get for giving up on Rawn ever following up with any of her previous works (now where's The Captal's Tower?).

Rawn's real strength is in building a world, and she does a great job with this one. The "Bedouin" shtick is a nice change from the pseudo-European setting of most similar fantasy. And as she's done in some of her more recent books, Rawn plays with gender roles in the society she creates.

Unfortunately, as other reviewers have pointed out, the characters are not necessarily very likable. The book is spread across a dynasty of a few generations, and while the original patriarch develops into an interesting character you can respect, his son just seems to get more deplorable over time. The author at a certain point seems to get tripped up in the political web she's weaving and the alliance/marriage/baby list gets a little long and over-bearing.

I'm excited to see Rawn returning to stories I might conceivably care about, and I'm willing to grant her this one as a "warm up" to bigger and better things.

[Joy Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rawn writes another masterwork set in the desert. I have been a fan since I first read the Dragon Prince in high school and this book powerfully reminds me of why I remain a loyal fan. Rawn writes such human characters that you feel as though they are truly your friends not some made people in a made up world. She also has a the ability to truly build a sense of place. Her nations, countries, and cultures feel like they are simply from another time. In this book we meet two families who seem to be in a perpetual political war. When the reigning Empress Nizzira decides to eliminate all the Ma'Aliq she is quite thorough killing even the servants and children. One sole survivor escapes because he was a dissolute, unrepentant, and irresponsible young man. When he realizes he is the only one of his name left, he flees into the desert for safety in obscurity and time to avenge his family. Thus begins the saga of the Ma'Aliq family and their connection to the Shagara. We follow the family through many years filled with both successes and failures until Qamar arrives to draw the whole family's history together. As a prequel to The Golden Key, this book can certainly stand on its own legs, but when tied together, these books make for an epic story of blood, honor, family, destiny , and magic. I recommend it highly for lovers of well written characters, that have a strong sense of place, and stories that are meaningful beyond themselves.

[Kes · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book traces the Al-Ma'aliq family through the generations. We start with Azzad, who survives the massacre of his family - and then jump to his son, Alessid, who also survives the massacre of his family, and Alessid's grandson, who is similarly isolated (albeit through his own choice) and thereon reinvents the magic system that's described in The Golden Key.

This is a 2.5 star book - it was okay. The magic system was interesting, especially since we trace its progression from being originally worked in metal and gemstones to the plant- and colour- based incarnation that we see in The Golden Key.

At the same time, it felt a little like a history book, when we jump from person to person, never really getting in to the character. For example, Alessid is determined never to become like Azzad - but it was hard to really understand that switch that had been thrown, and while that determination is alluded to, it's never fully explored. Similarly, Qamar's choice in striking out on his own felt incompletely explained. The ending felt a little incomplete too.

It definitely is epic fantasy, but it feels a little touch-and-go.

It's an enjoyable book. The prose is smooth. But it ultimately felt like an okay book.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed The Golden Key immensely, as well as some of Rawn's previous work in my favorite genre of sprawling high fantasy. For those who know her work, The Diviner is a worthy prequel to the Grijalva saga. Rawn's great strength is in the capturing of character--even if she is prone to BPS (beautiful people syndrome), the BPs in question are complex and interesting and flawed. The pseudo-Moroccan setting here is not too cliched (although not free from the usual Bedouinish-tribe flourishes that make them fun as long as we realize that they have very little to do with any real-world cultures). And unlike the Exiles, which I couldn't read because the my suspension of disbelief couldn't get past the simplistic gender reversals, she creates an interesting and reasonably viable culture with distinct but equally valued (by most) gender roles. There's a subtle theme of machismo makes for a bad guiding value system that doesn't turn into male-bashing, and the women aren't free of problems either.

[Bernadette Durbin]

This book is a prequel to The Golden Key, co-authored with Jennifer Roberson and Kate Elliott. The story goes back a couple of centuries before the earliest events of that novel, but it does not tell the story of the Diviner referenced in that story. One may well assume that it was a title opportunistically grabbed by a later war-leader.

This book goes into the lives of three generations of one family (technically, the last is a grandson of the second, but the intervening generation isn't much described.) It is a tale of treachery and vengeance, and quite honestly, it felt a bit short for the events that it covered (the apparent origins of the Grijalva talent and of the magical book the Kit'ab.) I would have also appreciated a map, such as what was put into The Golden Key, so that you could see the changes that time and ownership wrought on the areas described.

It's enjoyable, but if you go in expecting to hear about the origins of Tira Verte, you will be disappointed.

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

So it's been YEARS that I've been waiting for this book to come out. Turns out it's a prequel to one of my favorite Rawn books, The Golden Key. It started out a little difficult because unlike a sequel where you know where the story started, I'm starting this book having no idea where I am or how this is going to relate to The Golden Key, plus there's all these names of places and families in her own linguistic style for the region, and I was a little lost at first. But I pushed through and the story became interesting on its own merits as it covers stories of family and revenge and magic through four generations. I got a little lost again at the end (might be partly due to reading very late at night while nursing an infant), but she does tie the story in to her previously written book to explain the origins of the magic and the family that is focused on in The Golden Key.

[Laura · Rating 2 out of 5]

I enjoyed this novel until... the end of Part 1. I was really shocked at the turn of events and almost put the book down.

I'd heard of this author but never read her. I won this novel in a giveaway, otherwise I might never have read her stuff.

Even though I did not like what happened to the main character(s) I continued and became thoroughly confused as to all the new characters and family lines brought in. I realized I didn't care what happened to these new people and started skim-reading.

The ending was not satisfactory or even understandable. The author did not give the same amount of time, back story, and interest to the characters in the later parts of the book and it showed.

If her other novels are as complex with family lines and names re-used, then I think I will avoid them.

[Zack · Rating 2 out of 5]

From the dust jacket, I expected a book about Qamar, with a little lead-in about the previous generations. Instead, I got the story of Azzad and Alessid, with a short conclusion about Qamar.
And I prefer it that way. Azzad's story is full of high drama and tension. Alessid's life is equally thrilling, if in a different direction.
The true conclusion of the book comes at the end of Alessid's tale. Everything ties up nicely. Then Qamar's tale stirs it all up for no reason, only to have an unsatisfactory, choppy ending. Apparently this is a prequel, and if so, needs to lead in to whatever comes next. I'm just not sure why Ms. Rawn (who I've been a fan of for years) made the first two sections connect to the third. They could be a better book on their own, and more could go into keeping Qamar's life coherent and sensible.

[Nancy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I will admit that I am a Melanie Rawn fan and therefore, I really wanted to love this book. Unfortunately, it was just OK. I picked it up because it was the prequel to The Golden Key. The author still writes beautifully but there were places were the plot just dropped off. The story covered three generations but the transitions between the three story lines were clumsy. The first third of the book, the story of Azzad, was excellent and it showed flashes of the brilliance of her previous books. The main thing that I got from this book is that the author was back to writing and that I could hope that she might finish The Captal's Tower someday.

I truly wish the author well because she is a remarkable talent and she has battled with clinical depression.

[Loralee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Melanie Rawn fans who might have been disappointed by some of her latest work such as Fire Raiser (such as yours truly) will enjoy this return to the world of The Golden Key, in which a noble-born young man encounters a nomadic desert civilization, and he and his descendents use their magic to build an empire. It's a generational saga, so don't be surprised when the first main character dies. (That's what comes of not reading the back cover.) Although I found the ending a let-down, I enjoyed the tale of this family's spreading power, and the characters' relationships (Melanie Rawn has often drawn powerful, compelling characters whose flaws only accentuate their realism.)

[Suzie Quint · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have to agree with many of the other reviewers. This is not up to MR's usual standard of fantasy.

The book would have benefited greatly from a map and a lineage chart. The unusual names and the author's fondness for starting names with A, M, and Q made it hard to keep track of the characters. It was also, IMO, far too short to span 4 generations (even though one of those generations was basically skipped.) Because of all this, my emotions never really became engaged.

MR used to be an auto-read for me, but she's lost the qualities that made me a fan. Her original 6-book series will stay on my keeper shelf, but her new stuff won't find a place there.

[Bryan Gromowski · Rating 2 out of 5]

You definitely need to read the Golden Key before reading this book (I hadn't). I thought it was well written but I stopped and started several times since the universe and characters/events didn't mean much to me and I didn't really feel properly introduced to them by this book alone. There's some interesting magic with the hazziri and it's kinda neat to see a fantasy-world version of the Arabic culture in Western fiction but I wasn't as taken with this book as I was with her Sunrunner series.

[Debby Allen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Welcome back, Melanie. We missed you.

Another grand tale, sweeping generations and continents, but very comfortably fitting in its own book. I was a little confused, trying to keep the titles and names straight, but they fit the language which fit the story.

How prescient is Melanie? Did she see the Arab summer coming? Bush tried a war, little Bush tried again for his dad, imperialism doesn't work and only the people who belong to the land can make lasting change.

[Kathy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an interesting read. No one plot, unless you count the slow development of a magic system plot. It followed several generations and was the abbreviated history of a people. I don't think I've ever read a book quite like this. Some of the histories come close, but because they were real, they had more detail. An inventive and original work.

[Shanna · Rating 1 out of 5]

I made it through 3/4 of the story but it became redundant and unappealing. It takes a lot for me to put down a book without finishing it, but this one I had no trouble setting aside. Sad too because the first part of the story was amazing. If it had stayed with that story line this review would be completely different.

[Greg · Rating 4 out of 5]

A food read, prequel to 'The Golden Key', which I haven't read yet. It does, however, stand on it's own. From what I can see it sets a lot of the background for 'The Golden Key' rather than the characters involved.

That did make the ending a little disappointing as it was very open, but still came to a satisfying ending.

[Brenda · Rating 3 out of 5]

I hadn't realized that this was a prequel to Golden Key and I had read that so long ago I had nearly forgotten it. I enjoyed this story but nearly didn't finish it half-way through because I was irritated that the story jumped stream. She could have really brought this tale to life with more care, but instead the story marched along like a history book.