|
Rachel Hartman
Random House Books for
Young Readers
July 10, 2012 /ASIN: B005IQZC2M
Children 12+/ Fantasy
Amazon
Reviewed
by Beth E. McKenzie
Imagine for
a moment that you are a teenager again (yuk!) and that you are breaking
out all over and that you would do anything to hide the blemishes
on your skin. Your father, the lawyer, is always quoting law books
and won't let you play music. He has a new wife and children who
think you are a freak, and won't let you talk about your own mother.
Now add to it that your heritage, your very essence, puts you at
risk and marks you and your family for death should it be revealed.
Seraphina lives a very limited life until she becomes the music
teacher for the Princess Glisselda, the 15-year-old, second-heir
to the throne of Goredd.
Seraphina isn't a Jew during the time of the Inquisition, or a Protestant
during the reign of Bloody Mary, or even a light-skinned Negro at
the time of the American Civil War. She is an impossibility- a yirtrudis
- the product of an illegal marriage between a female dragon and
a male human - a half breed with the scales on her arms and body
to convict her. It is much less disgusting to think of when you
know her mother, Linn, was in her human form (saar), and loved Claude
so much that she was afraid to lose him with the truth. He didn't
know until he saw her die in childbirth, silver blood on the sheets.
She left Seraphina with a mind-pearl of her own memories so the
child would learn of her heritage one day. The effects of those
memories haunt the teen, but they also save her and the Royal Families
of two kingdoms.
I loved the brilliance and texture in this world of curious dragons
and disdainful lords! It is the Italian Renaissance: velvet, sculpture,
music, discoveries and mysticism, with DRAGONS! St. Daan in a pan-more
books and a three hour movie for each! I usually shrug off "new
worlds" with weird, unpronounceable words because they are
usually just tools to freshen up what somebody else had previously
done. Not so with Seraphina. There are weird words, but this story
imitates nothing I have read before. I usually don't say things
like this but I hope somebody sees the pattern and makes a bold
move - Star Wars - Lord of the Rings - Harry Potter - Seraphina!
|
