3.5 stars. Classic fantasy, a delightful coming-of-age tale, if a bit predictable, gently-paced and a veritable page-turner!
I first read this book many years ago, when I didn’t write reviews and neither GR nor BL existed. In fact, it was so long ago, I didn’t remember anything about the book except that it was sitting on my shelf, reminding me of pleasures gone by. This reading felt as fresh as if it was a new book. After almost fifteen years since its publication, I guess it was, in a sense.
Like many novels of this writer, this one is gentle and seemingly slow. It is a classic growing-up story. It starts when the heroine, Corie, is fourteen, ends when she is eighteen, and is told from her POV.
An orphan and an illegitimate daughter of the late bastard brother of an important lord, she lives with her grandma, a village witch, when her uncle, Lord Jaxon, rides in, looking for her. He makes a deal with her grandma that Corie will spend every summer at the royal castle, learning the ways of the court. Learning her own strengths and weaknesses. Learning to love and hate, to understand and forgive.
With her shining, courageous spirit and her kindness, Corie makes friends easily and indiscriminately. Many among nobility, servants, and guards are attracted to her. She is not perfect but she is alive: opinionated, compassionate, and smart. Sometimes she makes mistakes and misjudges people and situations, but she is brave enough to admit her faults and generous enough to give of her heart.
The more summers she spends at Castle Auburn, the less she feels as if she belongs to her village heritage. Unfortunately, the older she gets, the more she abhors the backstabbing and the political maneuvering of the royal court. Straddling two worlds, she doesn’t fully associate with either. It takes her some time to find her place in the universe.
Through the changing seasons, we see her mature, with the court life swirling in the background, supporting a complex and multidimensional cast. Each character is as alive as the protagonist, each with his or her own unique thread; all of them contributing to the colorful tapestry of the book.
There is Corie’s beloved half-sister Elisandra, composed and determined. There is guard Roderic, Corie’s stalwart friend. There is Prince Bryan, a petty arrogant boy in the beginning of the tale transforming into a cruel and haughty man by the end of it. There is Kent, the prince’s cousin, a young man who changes the least throughout the story but captures everyone’s heart as much as Corie’s. And then there are mysterious aliora, enslaved by humans – Shinn’s exclusive and totally original take on the fairies.
Despite its slow pace, quiet as a whisper, this book found its way into my heart. I loved its low-key lyrical story. I loved its sensible heroine. I loved the dash of intrigue and the whiff of romance. I loved Corie’s infallible sense of justice and her inner freedom. I loved the aliora. I loved the lightness of this novel, especially with so many darker stories dominating the fantasy genre these days.
I simply loved it.
Coriel (also called Corie) has spent many summers at Castle Auburn with her half-sister and the rest of her father's family. For the rest of the year, she lives in a village with her grandmother learning about herbs so she one day may become a Wise Woman.
Corie loves her sister and her summers at Castle Auburn. Often she wishes that they would not end. She misses her sister and others at the castle very much.
But as Corie gets older, she sees that things at Castle Auburn aren't as perfect as she once believed them to be.
I've wanted to read this for a while as it always sounded like it might be an interesting story. Summer has come and once again I've signed up for a summer reading program at my library. This year, there are different genres and sub-genres we are supposed to read books from. This book falls into one of the genres I'm supposed to read and I figured it gave me a good excuse to finally read this book.
This book is from Corie's perspective and she is an illegitimate daughter of a royal Lord. Before her father had died, he made his brother promise to find Corie and bring her to the castle.
Of course, Corie is only at Castle Auburn during summer, which is the deal her uncle was able to work out with her grandmother.
Castle Auburn sounds beautiful and for the most part, Corie was welcomed there. No, not everyone liked her, but enough did and I can see why she did like going there so much.
In the beginning Corie is a bit naive, but she's also young and I think it's good to remember she's not at Castle Auburn all year like her sister and other people she knows there. So, it's not until later that she begins to see the dark side of the castle and the dark side of some of those that reside there.
While this was told through Corie's perspective, I felt that I got to know the other characters very well. All were so well described, even the minor characters.
The Alora were interesting to read about and what their world was like.
I liked Corie. She was outspoken, though she was not supposed to be, and wanted to be in control of her own life. She was a well-developed character and likeable. Though I thought all the characters were well-developed.
The story is basically about Corie growing up and seeing the truth of things. The story is good though, intriguing and I found I couldn't put the book down.
The story and characters were all great. I really enjoyed this book a lot and I'm finally glad I got to read it.
I absolutely loved this book. I'm not sure if anyone else will have this experience but it was very emotional for me, I cried so many times even though this is mostly a light hearted book. It's all court- intrigue with a low sizzle romance that was beautiful and swoon worthy and truly made me FEEL with the amazingly well developed characters. 
I am not the biggest fan of young adult books, but had hoped this one would appeal to adult fantasy readers as well. After plodding through the first 80 or so pages, I did find it entertaining, but with a variety of problems and inconsistencies that make it hard to recommend.
Summers at Castle Auburn is the first-person narrative of Corie, the illegitimate daughter of a nobleman. She spends her summers at court with her older half-sister, and the rest of the year with her grandmother, a village herbalist. At the beginning Corie is 14, and her biggest problem is reconciling her crush on the crown prince with her adoration of her sister, who’s betrothed to him. By Parts 2 and 3 she’s a few years older, and finally noticing the problems in her world: the prince’s erratic and dangerous behavior, and the kidnapping and enslavement of the aliora (elves or fairies of some sort).
It’s a predictable plot, but I enjoyed predicting it. And the aliora subplot is handled well; Corie begins the book accepting what she’s been taught, and with a vested interest in the system, because she loves having aliora servants. But once she sees the suffering this situation causes, she begins to rethink her assumptions.
The romance doesn’t work so well: both Corie’s and her sister Elisandra’s romances are treated as mysteries, with all four players either hiding their feelings or not realizing them until near the end. To the extent we can predict the eventual pairings, it’s through knowledge of fictional conventions and the process of elimination rather than actual chemistry; the relationships are left undeveloped.
And the end is unconvincing:
while I applauded Corie’s actions in freeing the aliora, it’s hard to envision the nobility accepting her as queen after that. They’d paid a fortune for their aliora servants, and not only that, they’d paid most of it to Corie’s uncle, and Corie and her sister had since inherited his estate. Both the practical and the moral implications of this situation are ignored.
As for the characters, Corie is a typical YA female protagonist: headstrong, rebellious, naïve, and trained in herblore. (More than one problem is solved with herbs so convenient it’s as if they were invented for this plot. Oh right, they were!) Shinn does a good job with Corie’s voice, however, and the writing flows smoothly. Elisandra and Uncle Jaxon are interesting characters, but most of the supporting cast is flat. I was especially put off by the treatment of Angela, Corie’s best friend after her sister. Angela is one of those stock female characters whose only personality trait is a love of gossip. Because Corie wants to know what’s going on, she cultivates a friendship with Angela despite thinking of her as “the shallowest woman I’d ever met.” Which speaks poorly of Corie, but is also hypocritical, as the two girls’ desire to keep up with goings-on at court is essentially the same.
As for the worldbuilding, this is one of the most comfortable, casual quasi-medieval settings I’ve encountered: everyone bathes regularly; the village wise woman is not only literate but has bookshelves full of novels; the nobility are on friendly terms with their guards and servants, who can all be seen sitting around a campfire together having a chat; Corie takes a gap year to do some waitressing and save money. To lovers of YA fairytale fantasy, I imagine this is a feature rather than a bug, but the setting isn’t charming or dreamy enough for me to cheerfully overlook anachronism. And the naming conventions are all over the place: the only rhyme or reason I see is that the characters Shinn likes get fancy invented names (Elisandra, Coriel), while the ones she doesn’t have commonplace and undistinguished ones (Bryan, Megan). It’s hard to imagine “Bryan” as a crown prince, while Corie gets a princess’s name despite her low birth.
In the end, if you want to turn off your brain for awhile, this isn’t the worst book you could pick, but you could certainly do better. The writing seems intended to appeal to adults as well as teens, but it's not a book I’d recommend to adult readers.
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