Back in episode 31 I interviewed Karl Becktrand for the podcast. I asked him if there were any authors he thought would be good on the podcast and he reccomended Connie Walker. She's in his writing group and he described her as "One of the most underappreciated writers" he knows.
So, for ten weeks now I've been trying to get her interview done and I keep messing up on times and Skypes and all that stuff. I was scheduled to interview her last week and got the day messed up. She waited for me to call her while I sat in la la land, thinking we were scheduled for the next day.
I felt so bad that I went ahead and bought her book and promised to do an Amazon review.
After reading the first few chapters I understood why Karl said what he did. Connie is a wonderful writer and deserves to get more attention.
The Spire of Kylet starts with a prolog of about ten pages, so, I'm going to read that for you now.
The Spire of Kylet, a young adult fantasy, is the first book in The Wolkarean Inscription Trilogy.
Here's the Kindle blurb about the book.
Katrine of Banur has a scheme to escape the tedious life of a herder, with its forced early marriage, that her father has planned for her.
Secretly she applies to the illustrious Recorder’s School in the city of Pardish, where only a few exceptional apprentices are accepted each year. But Katrine has been honing her artistic talents and believes she has all the qualifications necessary to become one of the Regent’s elite historian-couriers. She has saved almost enough money from what she earns working on the family ranch in order to pay for the caravan trip. Regardless of what her parents say, she intends to leave home as soon as she receives notification of her acceptance.
Shortly after Katrine finds a spire, a magical weapon created centuries earlier by the sorcerer Kylet, a series of strange events assail her. Because of an act of heroism, she is adopted by one of the mystical Crennese tribes, the Glainites, and is given powers she does not understand and cannot control. She has upheavals of emotion and peculiar sensations in her body. She is plagued by headaches and blurry vision and horrible nightmares.
She fears her dream of becoming a Recorder is doomed.
Then, unexpectedly, she finds herself on a journey to Pardish in the company of a Master Recorder, his new apprentice, her most despised cousin, and a legendary Warrior. As they travel across the countryside, Katrine is faced with unimaginable dangers and decisions. Before she reaches her destination, she faces death three times, redefining her understanding of the world and her place in it.
The second and third books in the trilogy, The Eyes of Landor and Triumph at Serpent’s Head, are also available.
Spire was published in August of 2012 and has six reviews, all five stars.
My ratings:
The book cover shows a girl on a horse, leaning off toward something spining in the air that looks like a dreamcatcher. The picture is a small inset in the cover and is probably too small for getting atttention on Amazon. I give the cover only 3 stars and it may be the reason this book hasn't gotten more traction on Kindle.
The writing is immaculate. Karl Beckstand describes it in his Amazon review: The Spire of Kylet gets your attention from the start. Walker knows how to weave a great adventure--and she's artful in her use of language.
I agree one hundred percent. She has an economy to her writing. There are no redundant or superflous words.
Plausability: She sets up her magical system and shows the price of using magic in the very beginning. Horrifyingly, Elnid-Kyeh sucks the life force from a little girl to restore his waning strength. His magic is powerful--using a talisman to communicate with a distant underling and drawing up the vision of two young women--but there is an underlying method to the abilities which creates the sense of plausability.
Description: Again, Connie's economy of language and "artful use of language" clearly develop the scene we observe from Elnid-Kyeh's desceptive kindness to the little girl and his callused indiference to the prisoners he will soon consume to maintain his strength.
Setting: Whether with Elnid-Kyeh in the tower above the crashing waves or looking down on the two young women in the open field the setting is broad and believable.
Characters: We only truly meet Elnid-Kyeh in the prolog, though we are introduced to a girl who we will soon find out is Katrine, the heroine of the story. We learn a lot about Elnid-Kyeh in these first ten pages, what a cruel and calculating man he is, what his potential is, and the lengths he will go to achieve his desires. I look forward to learning more about the other characters of the story.
My overall rating is Five Stars. I will definately read the rest of this book. Not only because I promised Connie I would, but because I found the first chapter compelling and indicative of a well crafted story of fantasy and adventure.
I recomend that you read it as well.
https://www.amazon.com/Spire-Kylet-Wolkarean-Inscription-Book-ebook/dp/B00914INIW?ie=UTF8&keywords=The%20Spire%20of%20Kylet&qid=1464239460&ref_=sr_1_1&s=digital-text&sr=1-1
