Book Review: Goddess's Choice by Jamie Marchant

Title: Goddess's Choice

Author: Jamie Marchant

Publisher:  Reliquary Press

Published: April 18, 2012

Pages: 385

Source: ebook (from the author)

 

The crown princess Samantha fears she’s mad; no one but she sees colors glowing around people. The peasant Robrek Angusstamm believes he’s a demon; animals speak to him, and his healing powers far outstrip those of his village’s priests. Despite their fears, their combined powers make them the goddess’s choice to rule the kingdom of Korthlundia.

In my sword and sorcery novel, The Goddess’s Choice, Samantha’s ability enables her to discern a person’s character through their multi-colored aura, and Robrek’s makes him the strongest healer the kingdom has seen in centuries. But their gifts also endanger their lives. Royals scheme to usurp the throne by marrying or killing Samantha, and priests plot to burn Robrek at the stake. Robrek escapes the priests only to be captured by Samantha’s arch-enemy, Duke Argblutal; Argblutal intends to force the princess to marry him by exploiting Robrek’s powers. To save their own lives and stop the realm from sinking into civil war, Robrek and Samantha must consolidate their powers and unite the people behind them.

The Goddess’s Choice is based on a Norwegian fairy tale, “The Princess and the Glass Hill.” Though my favorite fairy tale as a child, it disturbed me that the female character has no name and no role other than being handed off as a prize. My novel remakes the crown princess of Korthlundia into a strong heroine who is every bit as likely to be the rescuer as the one rescued. The Goddess’s Choice would appeal to readers who enjoy the richly wrought worlds and well-developed casts of characters in Mercedes Lackey’s Valdemar books and Kate Elliott’s Crown of Stars series. I have nearly completed an initial draft of a sequel, The Soul Stone, and have outlines for two additional novels in the series.

Why Goddess's Choice? It's for you guys to find out I don't want to spoil you. The ebook was given to me by the author herself and I was really curious about it. Of course the first question that comes into my mind was written on the first sentence of this paragraph.

The story if very deep, I love it. It's really challenging. The twists and turns of the story is very intriguing. The book explains every little detail and role of its characters. But of course the main character is Samantha. I can imagine her as a pretty lady with a very interesting power. I don't understand at first why she can see that multicolored aura. But I think it is very awesome. Then I like Robbie here, he is a peasant who can talk to horses. It makes me think what if those powers are real?

The world I've been with this book is different from the one's I've read because of the side stories and all that, I was kinda confused actually but it gives me a great challenge to understand the flow of the story so for those who wants a challenging one you guys should read this!

One more thing I love about this book, it has some kind of a mystery. I will not tell you what it is but that made me think what can that character do and what does his/her ability can do. And why they are called demons.

Thank you for reading my blog.

Jamie Marchant lives in Auburn, Alabama, with her husband, son, and four cats, which (or so she’s been told) officially makes her a cat lady. She teaches writing and literature at Auburn University. Her first novel The Goddess's Choice was released in April 2012 from Reliquary Press. She is hard at work on the sequel, tentatively titled The Soul Stone. She also has published a novella, titled Demons in the Big Easy. Her short fiction has been published in Bards & Sages, The World of Myth, and Short-story.me.


Check out her website: http://www.jamie-marchant.com/