It ’s credibly not the good intro to the series , but Mercedes Lackey ’s latest Elemental Masters novel is a fun and surprisingly downlike plus .
The heroine of Unnatural Issue is a classic Cinderella case . Born to a pair of Earth mages , her female parent died in childbirth and her Fatherhood has withdrawn from the man . Essentially abandoned , she settles into the life history of a servant . But she also has the mob talent for Earth magic , and so — with a morsel of breeding from Robin Goodfellow , the Puck — she takes responsibility for the local plant and animal . Everything is truckage along just OK until her father search out one inauspicious day and sees the baby he blame for his married woman ’s death has spring up to womanhood and looks just like his dearly departed .
He ’s not just a garden - variety weirdo , though . After two decades shut up in his moldering rooms , Richard Whitestone is pretty much the maturate stump of a human being . In his folly , he ’s turned to necromancy . Rather than , say , raise his daughter , he decides to steal his girl ’s body to dish up as a vessel for his wife ’s soul . as luck would have it for Susanne , whispering of gloomy magic in Yorkshire have reached the White Lodge in London , and Lord Peter Alderscroft has been off to root out the troublemaker .
This assumption of this volume is deep creepy-crawly : magician wants to own daughter ’s consistence for nefarious purposes . Comparisons to Robin McKinley ’s unbelievable Deekskin are inevitable . ( If you ’ve never study that one , here’san appreciationby Jo Walton that should make you add it to the TBR cumulation . ) But , at the risk of spoilers , Lackey pull her punches with the concept . The protagonist escapes unscathed , which keeps the book from becoming dark and uncheerful . That take in the premiss seem kind of pointless . What should be a appall treachery of paternal responsibility does n’t have any literal impingement on the heroine , because they never had a father - daughter kinship in the first place . It simply just exemplify what a unspeakable person Richard Whitestone is , but ritually give a kitty would have convince us just as soundly .
Instead , Lackey takes a much lighter , happier tack . Her charmingly wholesome protagonists , Peter and Susanne , join force to combat the malevolent wizard . Peter , the younger son of a noble sign of the zodiac and imminently adequate to water system mage , is funny and zany and generally adorable . He ’s sent North to investigate because he ’s gifted at seem goofy and thereby gathering all sort of info without attracting attention . legion absurd impressions follow . He also talks like this : “ The bad thing that could fall out would be that Mater immediately find my brother a suitable mate and fling him into a church and then into the poor gel ’s bottom posthaste . ” Gadzooks ! Tallyho !
Susanne , on the other hand , starts out a bit dopey . She ’s a good - natured earth female parent , but not much of a mystifying creative thinker . For illustration : She develops a powerful crush on on Charles , Peter ’s buddy , ignoring the infinitely more desirable Peter and spending much of World War I blundering about the continent after a guy wire who ’d never mate off with someone so improper . But her wartime experiences nursing men brisk from the front lines do make her more matured .
Historical fable fan will get a kick out of the book ’s dovetailing with the First World War . The tarradiddle open with ominous rumblings from the continent . By the end , most of the characters have expend time at or near the oceanic abyss . The juxtaposition of modernism ’s blooming , fearful nascency and 19th - century fairy - fib magic is an interesting choice . We also get lots of interesting inside information about early combat nursing . That said , the metre - phone line is a bit arrhythmic . Much of the first half of the novel is squeeze into a brief period of clip . Then Susanne is spirited out of the area , and the action slow to a glacial rate as the state of war cower nearer and lastly engulfs the agonist . The shifting is jumpy .
Unnatural Issue is n’t anything striking or earth - breaking . But it is a straightforward , simply fairy fib for grownup . In other words , it ’s comfort reading for longtime Lackey fan and an enjoyable addition to the Elemental Masters serial .
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