fantasy, young adult
Elspeth has a secret. She has a literal monster living
within her. She caught “the infection” as a 9-year old and has been hiding that
fact for the past 11 years as well as the fact that she has magical abilities
and strengths that would cause her to be imprisoned or killed if discovered.
When she is finally discovered, she is forced to forge an alliance with those
whom she has most feared.
One Dark Window is set in a kingdom where special Providence
Cards give their possessors magical powers. But those who survive “the infection”
inherit unpredictable natural magical powers without needing to use the cards.
For that reason, the Infected are feared and punished by the King. Elspeth’s particular
magic allows her to see the magic of those cards, making her powerful. Of
course, the reader is rooting for her and her newly-forged partners to succeed
in their goal of collecting all twelve Providence Cards so that those
who’ve suffered “the fever” can be cured, ending the tyranny against them.
Told from Elspeth’s point of view, this atmospheric novel had a slow and uncertain start for me. Thankfully, eventually, most of my ongoing problems with the story up to that point (holes and
unbelievably convenient situations) were explained to my satisfaction. The
characters, the alliances, the rifts, the dangers, the characters’ goals, and
the romance were fun. Was the novel perfect? Definitely not. But I can’t wait
to read Rachel Gillig's second book in the duology because I have to know what happens
next!
I am of two minds about the audiobook narrator, Lisa Cordileone. Right off the bat, she gave me the impression that she was trying to sound mysterious and magical when I wished she had just read the story without the atmospheric attempt because her “magical” voice didn’t sound authentic. Also, my least favorite thing, by far, was the way she pronounced the word “hearth” as hurth. And this word appears in this novel about a million times! I shouldn’t hold regional pronunciation differences against her but this pronunciation is definitely uncommon according to the internet. It bugged me every time and took me out of the story. Every. Time. She also had a wimpy male voice for the hunky Ravyn which was disappointing, given that she did seem to have a decent vocal repertoire for many of the other characters. But male voices are not her forte. However, despite all those knocks against her, she is a really excellent voice actor! So, I can’t be too vicious with my grade. I’ll give her a B for this book. I have a feeling I’d like her better with a different sort of novel.
Perhaps it’s because I was dealing with medical issues and
was on a medicine regimen, but Two Twisted Crowns seemed to never end. It was
long-winded and often predictable. I enjoyed the new romance featured in this
novel but all the other stuff was just melodrama with hurdle after hurdle. The secrets revealed, the rules of magic, the
struggles, and the sacrifices didn’t reach my heart. I powered through to the
end because I had already invested so much time in it by the time I realized it was becoming a chore. But both listening to
the audiobook and reading on Kindle could not bring me any more quickly to the
end of the story as I desired. Sadly, that is never a good sign.
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