The Zen Leaf

Installment three of this trilogy, after The Girl of Fire and Thorns, and The Crown of Embers.

Spoilers.

What can I say? I think this is my new favorite series. There were definitely some flaws in this book, particularly with the plot, which seemed a bit random-pants in places for me. Kinda went all over the place. Other than that, though, I adored it.

Characters! I am so in love with these characters. We got to have a few chapters from Hector’s POV! Awesome! And I loved getting to know Storm even better, and meeting Red, and all the things that come full circle throughout the book. I love that Elisa ends up saving herself over and over, and gets saved a couple times, and does all this stuff with her magic – only to have her act of service be something so random and unmagical. I love that when she rescues herself, it’s because of all the physical combat she’s learned, rather than because of magic. I loved getting to see her sister again, and the way Storm fell for Alodia. I loved the way Hector and Elisa’s relationship came together.

There were some great moments in here. My favorite, the part that made me laugh out loud, was when Storm impersonates an animagus attacking a village. The quote goes:

More arrows spear the brightening sky. Storm’s voice booms across the tiny valley, menacing and curselike. He’s intoning something in the Lengua Classica. Then a giggle bubbles from my throat when I realize it’s a silly rhyme about poppy fields and drunk sheep.

It was such an unexpected bit of humor, and I couldn’t stop laughing. Awesome.

I loved the way this book ended. I loved seeing everyone’s stories wrapped up, and how it all worked out. I love that while this is a finished trilogy, there is room open for possible more stories in this world. Definitely putting this whole series on my wishlist!

Sequel to The Girl of Fire and Thorns. And oh my it was wonderful. I just want to hug this series!

In this book, Elisa is struggling to assert herself as queen and not appear weak. There are assassination attempts on her life. She has to learn more about her Godstone. And of course, there was the love story with Hector. So slow, so gradual, so compelling! I need to learn to write my love stories slower. And I love that we get just a little glimpse more into the world of the Inviernos. It sounds as if the next book will have even more.

I loved every single thing about this book. The pacing. The slow unveiling of knowledge. Seeing old characters show up and learning more about them. The way Elisa has grown so much but is still herself, without ever revisiting ground from the old book. I love Rosario’s development, and the natural way that Hector’s feelings for Elisa are revealed. I love all the rituals and religion.

I remember, years back, wondering why modern-day books couldn’t involve religion without it being a conflict for the reader. In this one, religion is just a given for the narrator. It’s simply there. There’s no questioning it, but there’s never any pushing of it on the reader, either. It helps, of course, that it’s a fantasy religion. But at the same time, the book is so steeped in religion that it COULD feel intrusive. But it doesn’t.

I will definitely need to own these books!!!!!

Spoilers.

Once every century, God chooses a Hero. The child is meant to perform a service in His name, and is identified by a jewel known as the Godstone in the child’s navel, not present at birth, but granted shortly afterwards. Elisa is this child, given the Godstone on her naming day, and now, sixteen years old, she is to be married to the king of the neighboring country as part of a political alliance. Elisa is a scholar, but no warrior. She is very heavy and addicted to food, and while she loves her God and Godstone, she feels there might have been a mistake when it comes to her being chosen.

The plot is so much more than I described above. The book is so much more. Elisa is a fantastic character. She’s not well-versed in politics or court life, as the second daughter of a king. She detests her body but won’t make changes to it, and she’s embarrassed by the attention it causes her to receive. She has never met the man who will become her husband, and prays that he will be old, ugly, and fat, so that she doesn’t have to feel bad about her own body on his behalf. Beyond that, there is a constant threat of war against another country who seem to have harnessed the power of some sort of sorcery, something that is considered distinctly heretical in Elisa’s and her husband’s countries.

Elisa’s husband, Alejandro, is nice enough. The opening scene, at their wedding, was enough to catch my interest. He is kind, generous, and friendly. He respects her fear of intimacy and never tries to push himself on her, but also exhibits no disgust about her body. His first wife died, and he has a six-year-old son, but he doesn’t compare her to a previous life or expect her to do anything more than hopefully become his friend. Later, it’s revealed he has a mistress, but by the end, you know that he loves that mistress, and that he thinks he would have loved Elisa as well, if they’d ever been given the chance to find out. He wasn’t perfect, but he wasn’t a bad person either, and I loved that.

Elisa herself goes on a major journey throughout the book, first joining a new culture, then being kidnapped, then forming a rebel army to fight against the Invernios who are attacking the borders of her new country. She becomes stronger, losing some weight – though she doesn’t become tiny, skinny, or fit, just smaller – and learning to do things that she shied away from in the past. She makes hard decisions, and loses some people she cares about. By the time she is returned to her husband, she’s unrecognizable to him, though his son, Rosario, who only met her once, knows her immediately.

I’m doing a terrible job reviewing this book. I really, really liked it. This is set in a fantasy world with Spanish-flavor culture. Religion is a huge portion of their society, and there are all sort of rituals and manuscripts and monasteries. I learned so much more about what I needed to do for my own fantasy series from reading this book. I loved the world-building, and I think that over the next couple books, I might learn more about the Invernios, and maybe understand this war from their point of view. I hope so, at least!

Can’t wait to read the others!