Book Review: Summerfall by Claire Legrand

Series:	Winterspell #0.5
Genre:	Young Adult, Romance, Fantasy, Retelling
Publication.Date:	August 26, 2014
Pages:	130 (eBook)
Published By:	Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Website:	Claire Legrand
	Summerfall on Goodreads
My review copy:	Borrowed from local library

Where to get:

In this captivating novella, prequel to the upcoming Winterspell, Claire Legrand weaves a story of magic, political intrigue, and forbidden love.

Rinka is a faery, passionate and powerful, determined to maintain the tenuous peace between faeries and humans.

Alban Somerhart is a human, a reluctant king trapped in an arranged marriage, desperate to prevent war.

Their love could save the kingdom of Cane—or shatter it forever.

This entrancing tale sets the stage for the rise of a wicked queen, and the journey of a lifetime for a human girl named Clara... in a sexy and action-packed new series is impossible to put down!

(Goodreads)

No, humans couldn't possibly be the evil Garen would have her believe. Such beautiful, ephemeral creatures, with messy passions and flimsy bodies and cheeks that flushed pink instead of blue - they entranced Rinka. The fact that they managed to exist, despite their fragility, was miraculous. And anyway, they were the faeries' sovereigns, chosen by the land itself as the rightful rulers of Cane. Why would Cane have selected barbarians to rule? The land was not unkind; they land was mother to all. So Rink wouldn't believe evil of them. To believe a thing, Rinka had to see it for herself.

Garen kept his gaze trained on the floor, though Rinka could see the lines of his shoulders hardening with tension. She felt that they were very small - herself, Garen, the other faeries - next to these mighty people with their clean robes. She did not like feeling small. She wasn't small.

She was Rinka, daughter of Kasper of the feary Council, and she would not be treated like this, queen or no.

"That you would consider not torturing a living being a weakness does not speak well of you, my King," Rinka shot back. "That you would let others rule your kingdom for you, let them make your decision for fear of what they will think of you if you make the wrong one yourself - that makes you weak. Not mercy."

I've had Winterspell on my TBR for a while and when I realized there was a prequel novella, I knew I had to read it first. . . And I wish I hadn't. The characters were blah and I found that I didn't care about the story or what was happening.

This may be a me-thing because I have trouble getting into novellas. There's not enough story for me or character development for me to care what happens to these characters. Maybe if I had read Winterspell first I would have enjoyed Summerfall, but that's not the case.

I religiously read the first few chapters, but ended up skimming the second half. Why didn't I just give up and DNF it? Because I still want to read Winterspell and maybe something I read during Summerfall will have a bit of significance. Also, I'm not in the habit of judging a book / author / series by one short 130 page novella. So I'm going to give myself a few days between Summerfall and Winterspell and dive back into Claire's storytelling.

Update: I have since begun reading Winterspell and at the point I'm only a few chapters in but I'm already enjoying it more than Summerfall.