Review: TheEnchanted Castle (Shioni of Sheba #1)
by Marc Secchia
Genre: YA / Fantasy / Adventure
Review:
Wonderful exotic
adventure!
The Enchanted Castle is a cracking adventure for teens or young adults
of any age in the exotic location of a fictional historical Ethiopia. Marc
Secchia has created an outstanding heroine for this story and the series:
Shioni is a young slave girl of foreign origin, a maidservant and bodyguard to
Princess Annakiya.
West Sheba is a
small kingdom within the land known as Abyssinia, and the historical period
appears to be about the eighteenth century, perhaps earlier. The king orders a
large expedition to reclaim the mountain fortress of Castle Asmat. Hostile
mountain tribesmen represent a known danger, but witchcraft increasingly
presents an insidious threat, the more so as so few are willing to believe in
it.
Shioni is on the
best of terms with her mistress the Princess, not to mention the delightful
cook and house mother, Mama Nomuula, but the Prince, one of his captains and
even the king's General seem to have it in for Shioni, perhaps simply because
she is different. While everyone is dark skinned and has black hair, Shioni
alone is pale and blonde. She looks like a witch, or a ghost, and when she
begins to discover that she can hear things that others can't, that only adds to
her troubles.
That this is a
young adult book is reflected in the recklessly adventurous nature of Shioni,
and also the Princess, and in the breath-holding way they manage to overcome
dangers that one might have expected to overpower them. This is also the case
in the way the actors are portrayed as 'bad' or 'good' – but let me make clear
that this does not mean that the characters are flat. There is a good deal of
depth to most of the characters, enough to satisfy many adult readers.
Furthermore there is visible growth and development in key players, as events
bring them to revise their assumptions and understanding of the world, and of
one another.
The plot and
pace are first-rate, and the writing is of a professional standard and easy to
like. This is the first in a four-book series, but it can be read comfortably
as a stand alone story. After reading this one I want to go out right away and
get the next, and the next!
What I'm Reading Now:
by Ioana Visan
Feynard
by Marc Secchia
Added to my To Read list:
Well, there's The King's Horse, The Mad Giant and The Sacred Lake (the rest of the Shioni of Sheba series, of course!), and then one I've been wanting to read for a while now,
The Girl who Sang with Whales, and in the Dragon Shapeshifter series (after Aranya, which I read last year), #2, Shadow Dragon, and The Pygmy Dragon.
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| Love this cover! |
That should keep me out of mischief for now!
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