Crown Duel by Sherwood SmithCrown Duel (1997) Book 1 by Sher­wood Smith is pub­lished by Puf­fin and is cat­e­go­rized as YA fan­tasy. Crown Duel (Book 1) is nar­rated by the young Count­ess Meliara, a hero­ine more com­fort­able in rid­ing gear than a dress. She and her brother, Bra­naric are revolt­ing against their King. At the begin­ning of the story, the two sib­lings are seen swear­ing a blood oath to their father to pro­tect the Covenant and restore peace to their land.

The plot is some­what com­plex. The Covenant has to do with wood and Fire Sticks. The “color trees” as they are called has some type of spe­cial grain in them that trans­forms them into gleam­ing, attrac­tive col­ors. They were once cut down by the peo­ple of Remalna who grew wealthy by reselling them to peo­ple of other lands. Unfor­tu­nately, the “color trees” are the home of the Hill Folk. Hill Folk are a mag­i­cal peo­ple who have no weapons save magic and spells. Peace was stuck when it was under­stood that wood would only be gath­ered when it fell from a tree. In return for their obe­di­ence, the Hill Folk would bestow upon every­body, includ­ing the King, Fire Sticks. Fire Sticks are unique in that they burn by magic. When Meliara takes up the story after the Pro­logue, we learn that their cen­turies old truce is threat­ened by a bad King who thinks he is above the law.

Spies have con­fis­cated evi­dence of the King’s treach­ery in regards to the bro­ken Covenant and this leads Meliara and her brother to revolt. How­ever, they are pri­mar­ily alone in their cause because they have lit­tle sup­port from the vil­lage folk who want to avoid war. After declar­ing war against the King, the King sends his cousin, Baron Debergi to cap­ture and restore order. After two months of no suc­cess, the King sends in the Mar­quis of Shevraeth to cap­ture the revolutionaries. The Mar­quis is rumored to be  a “fop” who has a ” head for noth­ing but clothes [and] gam­bling.” Meliara does get cap­tured and she does escape and what an adven­ture she has in store for the reader.

I really liked this story but it did drag in some places. It’s not a “keeper” for me because I did put it down dur­ing the slow parts. There is a thin thread that involves polit­i­cal intrigue that was fur­ther strengthed by the sus­pense and action of the story. The author does thrown in a sur­prise or two for the reader that I liked. Crown Duel suf­fered more for poor pac­ing but it did have some great dia­logue along with a great story and great characters—-and yes, some char­ac­ters stuck out more than the oth­ers. Espe­cially the Mar­quis of Shevraeth, who is described as hav­ing long, pale blond hair with gray eyes who wears a heel length cloak and hat that cov­ers his eyes. He has very few scenes over­all in this book but he stood out the most. He plays a much larger role in book 2: Court Duel, that I’ll read soon.

The end­ing of Crown Duel left me scram­bling to find the next book in this duol­ogy because the author delib­er­ately left things unre­solved. What about the romance? There’s the promise of one and the sub­tle chem­istry between the two was nice because it does help build the antic­i­pa­tion for the sec­ond book. My grade for this entry is a B because the first half did drag, as well as the mid­dle and the end­ing did pick up pace. Crown Duel (Book 1) is another good story with some good action scenes with a mys­te­ri­ous hero in a his­tor­i­cal novel blended with the ele­ments of fan­tasy. My grade, B.

Tech­no­rati Tags: , , ,