A few years ago I started a Madeleine L'Engle project. I read some of her Chronos/Kairos series (which starts with A Wrinkle in Time and focuses on the Murry family) and then I asked for the Austin series for Christmas. I read through this book - so this is a reread for me.
The Young Unicorns is set in New York City, and is told from the perspective of a young man, Josiah Davidson, who has become close to the Austin's since their move away from the small town where their house, Thornhill, is located.
L'Engles books are difficult to describe and difficult to pigeonhole. There are generally strong religious themes, as well as elements of sci fi. Because they were, typically, written for a YA audience, some of the elements haven't worn well and seem extremely dated. In this book, that's true of both the central element of science - something that L'Engle refers to as a "Micro-Ray," which is basically a laser, and, also, the presence of the least threatening "gang" in the history of literature, the Alphabats, who hang around a church.
However, even though those elements of the story are dated, and even laughable at times, I enjoyed The Young Unicorns. I think that L'Engle writes families better than anyone - she perfectly captures the warmth and humanity of a family, but doesn't leave out the conflict. If I had to choose a fictional family to adopt, it would either be a L'Engle family - the Austins and the Murrys are both delightful, or the Weasleys, from Harry Potter.
Reading The Young Unicorns reminded me why I love her books, flawed though they are - and inspired me to restart, and this time complete, my L'Engle project.
Relisten was just as fabulous the second time. But my enjoyment and love will stop with this one book and not continue with the rest of the series. It is perfection just as it is and the HEA is strongly felt. <3
Original Review:
Here we go. First off, this book is… |
From New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Thea Harrison comes the final novella featuring Pia and Dragos…
Pia’s latest pregnancy has become a daily challenge, her relationship with Dragos strained with argument. That hasn’t stopped them from achieving a compromise and traveling to Las Vegas to celebrate their friend Rune’s wedding to his mate Carling.
From the moment they arrive, the trip goes awry. Death walks in Vegas, and Pia is kidnapped as an ancient enemy makes a move to destroy the Great Beast once and for all.
But the Great Beast has other plans.
On Planet Dragos everything goes the way he arranges it—unless someone decides to cross him, and God help them then, because he doesn’t know how to back down, and he doesn’t ever, ever let up….
Planet Dragos is a thrilling and fantastic send off to Dragos and Pia as some exciting events take place and brings about major changes to their world.
As always the characters of the Elder Races universe are strong, bold and easily draw readers in and hold them hostage until the very end. In Planet Dragos, we meet up with Dragos, Pia and friends as well as meet some new characters, one of whom is Death which adds quite a bit of excitement and chilling anticipation to the story. There is never a dull moment in this fast paced story which full of thrills and suspense which keeps readers on the edge and since most of those events are life altering continuously builds a sense of nail-biting anticipation throughout the story as well.
The Elder Races series is exciting and full of wonderful characters that constantly surprise readers and brings them lots of enjoyment and I have to say that Pia and Dragos favorites of readers everywhere including me, so I was quite thrilled with this book and I found it to be quite energetic and exhilarating from start to finish. And while I am disappointed about one of the decisions that Dragos and Pia made (sorry no spoilers), I am also looking forward to finding out what Thea Harrison has in store for us readers next.
Planet Dragos is # 9.8 of the Elder Races series which includes (in reading order):
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Sure, all I know about the life of an Anglican priest comes from this series and Paul Cornell's Lychford novellas, (oh, and one series of Grantchester) and maybe Fantasy fiction isn't the best source, but man, being a priest in a small village/town in England seems to be lonely and horrible -- especially around Advent. Which is where we find Penny White -- running on fumes, bouncing from obligation to obligation -- with barely enough time for her grieving brother, her gryphon partner and her snail shark (never mind the duties in the parallel world of Daear) -- not to mention casually dating a police inspector and a dragon. Throw in a murder mystery and . . . wow. How does she sleep?
Before we get to much of that Penny and her brother, James, go to Lloegyr for the trial in the death of James' girlfriend. It is quick, decisive, decidedly alien (as it should be) and adjudicated by a panel of 3 unicorns. Apparently, Unicorns are impossibly fair, honest and just so they make the perfect judges. No one, not even the dragons would dare protest what the unicorns decide. Penny can't help but note how almost everyone she sees reacts strangely to unicorns -- she'd probably do the same, however, if she weren't so dragon-obsessed. When bodies start showing up on Earth with what seem to be unicorn-caused injuries, Penny seems to be the only one who is willing to follow the evidence. At the same time, maybe it's just me, but it didn't seem that Penny was too bothered by the murders -- and certainly didn't seem to spend too much energy investigating them. (although, that might have more to do with the obviousness of the culprits and the difficulty getting anyone else on board with it).
James is not handling the grieving process too well -- not that anyone does -- and I was less-than-impressed with the way Penny was dealing with him.. It really seemed out of character for her. I think it points to a slow-build of a problem for Penny and her dual callings. In the first book, we got hit over the head with the concern that she'd be too focused on the other world too much to do a decent job on Earth, and while it was only brought up once or twice here, I think it's easy to see that the danger was real. I like how it seems that Cymri is moving this problem to the back burner, just so it can keep growing as a problem while being subtle about it. Professionally/vocationally, things are not going well for Penny, and I think this will continue for awhile.
While writing about book 1, I was worried about an impending romantic triangle -- and I like the way that Cymri dealt with it here, much more than I assumed I would when we left it off. I'm not sure I'm ready to breathe easily about it yet, but I have hope (I also haven't read as many romantic triangles this year as I have in years past, maybe my tolerance for them will increase). Actually, I liked just about everything about the romance angle in this book. Especially Morey's.
The Murder plotline (and the aftermath) serves as the narrative hook for the book, but doesn't seem to occupy as much of the time as you'd think. Where The Temptation of Dragons introduced us to this reality (or dual-realities, I guess), this one explores it -- with a greater emphasis on Earth. We really spend very little time on the "other side." Which was okay, really. I imagine that won't always be the case (glancing ahead at the blurb for the next volume, it looks as if I'm right).
I'm not sure what else to say at this point, but I'm pretty sure I've been less thorough than I intended. I enjoyed The Temptation of Dragons and The Cult of Unicorns kept all the charm and wit about that, but grounded the characters and their actions better (or at least more firmly). And really, that's about all you can hope for from a series -- you keep everything you liked in the previous installment and build on it. Cymri nailed that, which serves to make me plan on getting to book #3 faster than I did this one.
Disclaimer: I received this book from the author in exchange for this post -- thanks so much for this book.