Given
Given
She glanced around her suite, her home for the next year. After a cramped and noisy night in the academy’s guest lodging, she’d firmly decided it was worth the money to have the best rooms she could get, so along with her tuition she had paid for accommodation at a women’s residence called Riverbank Chambers.
It was all very Creshen. She couldn’t rightfully call the suite small, but the way it was sealed, with no gap between the wall and ceiling, made it feel stifling. Thankfully, it had a little balcony, so she could open the doors. She also had a big Creshen bed, which was soft and fluffy and fun to bounce on, but made for a hot and fitful sleep. Off the bed chamber was another small room – a nook, really – with a big window; a dark sturdy desk; and a padded chair.
Yenni looked in the mirror and smoothed her vest one last time. No more dallying. This morning she would attend her first class: Foundations of Magical Theory. She didn’t want to be late, especially since the class was taught by that irritating Professor Mainard. As she exited her suite Yenni took one last look at the desk, where she’d left her runepaint and brushes. She was no longer as concerned about the dragon: not once had the Master’s protection rune reacted to him. And she needed to conserve her runepaint, so today she sported just a few small, quick speed and strength runes.
And, of course, the runes on her hands. She ran her thumb along the swirling white rune on her left palm, offered up a prayer to Father Ri for guidance and wisdom, and set out for her first day at Prevan Academy.
Yenni is a Yirba princess from the Moonrise Isles who has made the decision to leave her home and attend school in the Empire of Cresh for one year. Her father has a major but undiagnosed illness, and Yenni feels Cresh is where she may find a cure. During her time away from home, she meets Weysh, a dragon/man, as well as a variety of other strangers. Everything around Yenni is new and different, and she must learn to fit in as best she can while trying to keep focused on finding the medical information her father so desperately needs.
Author Nandi Taylor gives her readers an interesting female protagonist. On one hand, Yenni is accustomed to the privileges of her position as a princess, and her sense of duty to her royal family is strong. Yet she bravely faces a year far from home, showing her determination and courage in the face of obstacles. Yenni is a warrior as well as a princess, and she seeks freedom from such expectations as an arranged marriage to a Moonrise prince. When she reaches Cresh, her fights are against stereotypes and racism since the Creshens view those from the islands as outsiders whose customs are unusual and foreign and, therefore, not socially acceptable.
The other main character is Weysh, a shape-shifter who spends part of his time as a dragon and part as a man. Throughout much of the novel, he is a stereotypical male whose main interest in Yenni is how soon they can marry and have children. From the beginning, he endeavours to explain that Yenni is his “given”, i.e. soulmate, and he cannot understand her reluctance to immediately understand this and become his partner.
Much of the novel focuses on this romantic relationship which will be disappointing to readers more interested in the fantasy elements of the book. Weysh is heavy-handed at best, and Yenni seems to be a typical and rather predictable romantic heroine – at first appalled by Weysh and quite actively disliking him and, by the end of the story, content to be a lover and plan a future together. Taylor does not handle the relationship particularly well and the romance tends to overshadow and overwhelm the fantasy and action aspects of the novel. To give Weysh credit, he begins to learn that being patient with Yenni is a better strategy, and readers sense that he may even have some notion of consent and its importance in a relationship. With this change in Weysh’s character, Taylor has briefly sketched out a potential theme of her novel.
Other characters include Noriago and Professor Devon, the ‘bad guys’ needed to help move along the plot, and friends of Yenni and Weysh, such as Diedre, Harth and Zu. While interesting, none of these friends particularly adds to the story; they simply fill out a cast of characters.
Taylor’s worlds of the Moonrise Isles and the Empire of Cresh provide a unique setting. The two places are very unalike, having different gods, different foods, different customs and so on. The fantasy elements of the setting add a great deal to the story as the author goes into great detail about the runelore of the Moonrise Isles and the various types of Creshen magic, including, of course, the many dragons who are shape-shifters. The setting of Prevan Academy allows the author to include extra characters as well as courses in various types of magic, war games, and so on, all reminiscent of Harry Potter and Hogwarts.
Given helps readers understand the importance of finding one’s place and being oneself, particularly in an environment which is different and even potentially hostile. Throughout most of this coming-of-age story, no one knows Yenni is a princess, and she must earn respect and friendship on her own merits.
The final pages gave me the sense that there is more to come, and perhaps Given is the first novel in a series. More of the story would allow the author to enhance her main character, help her character Weysh grow and mature, and fill in more details to improve the impact of the secondary characters. Now that the romance is hopefully behind them, Yenni and Weysh could move on to more interesting and meaningful adventures in the fantasy world created for them.
Ann Ketcheson, a retired high school teacher-librarian and classroom teacher of English and French, lives in Ottawa, Ontario.