My Rating: 3.5 hearts
Thoughts on the Novel: Although I personally wouldn’t consider
Juliet Marillier’s Shadowfell series to be very memorable, I have
continued reading it because it’s a solid trilogy, especially if you enjoy
slow, traditional fantasy.
The Caller begins with Flint
having reached his breaking point after witnessing the events at the end of Raven Flight, and no longer willing to
work as an Enforcer for Keldec. Meanwhile, in order to fulfil her quest of becoming
the most capable Caller that she can be, Neryn sets off to meet the two Guardians
that she hasn’t trained with, the White Lady and the Master of Shadows. On her
way to seek the Master of Shadows though, Neryn finds out that Keldec has found a Caller of his own and has started
using his Caller to amass an army of fey to fight for him. The task of
overthrowing Keldec just became that much harder for the rebels!
In comparison to the previous two novels in the series, The Caller had a much faster pace, which I liked. I also thought Marillier did a good job of
making Neryn realize that Keldec’s men and servants aren’t all evil and that
many of them don’t approve of his tyrannical ruling. It would have been nice
though if the conflict between Keldec and the rebels hadn’t been resolved as
quickly or easily; it wasn’t very realistic, and the finale could have been so much more epic in my opinion!
The Caller was released by Knopf
Books for Young Readers in September 2014.
Comments
About the Cover: I like the background as it makes it pretty clear that the
novel is a fantasy. I have mixed reactions about the model’s pose though; it makes
sense because Neryn is a Caller, but it drives me insane that I have no idea
what she’s Calling.
