Sunday, October 23, 2016

Lady Dragon, Tela Du Blog Tour: Review


Hello, everyone! The other day, I interviewed Petra, one of the heroines of Lady Dragon, Tela Du. Today, I'm back on the blog tour- not with another interview, but with a review of the book.

A year and a month ago, Kendra E. Ardnek released Water Princess, Fire Prince , the first book in the Rizkaland Legends. I enjoyed it; it wasn't amazing, but it was creative and a fun read and had a cute main couple and a good theme. I expected roughly the same from Lady Dragon, Tela Du- but when I opened the book, what I found blew me away. Why? I'm glad you asked.

(But, first, a bit of background to this review: I beta-read Lady Dragon, Tela Du before Ir ead it for this review, which basically means that I got to send the author hopefully-helpful comments, which were really more like half helpful and half fangirling. The main effects of that, as far as this review goes, are (A)I've read it twice and therefore have had more times to organize my thoughts on it, and (B)I have a more comprehensive stock of comments to look back on regarding my reactions to certain things. Anyway. On with the review.)

The Awesome:
- The Characters: Are generally awesome, with a few exceptions (which I'll get to later). A quick rundown of my favorites:
--Petra is the main character and the titular Tela Du. She's also rather snarky, quite practical, and not particularly pleased at being tossed into a fantasy world and a destiny. Thankfully, she gets over it quickly and proceeds to be awesome. She's a very human character- she makes bad decisions at times, gets annoyed at people, and harbors a fair bit of resentment over certain events. But her determination and desire to do her best even with a destiny she didn't want make up for it (as does the aforementioned snark). And she loves tea and BBC television and long skirts and chocolate and apparently has a bit of a British accent, so, yeah. What's not to like?
--Reuben is Petra’s best friend and also love interest . . . though I feel like it’s a little bit unfair to call him a love interest, because he’s way more than that. He balances Petra out while still being totally his own character: steady, dependable, and an immense lover of fantasy-fiction. I’m pretty certain that he and I would get along famously if only he was real- we could chat about The Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia and shove other favorite books at each other to our hearts’ content. I was a tiny bit disappointed that Kendra didn’t make more use of the opportunities for humor with him (having a fantasy-lover in a fantasy world is practically begging for some kind of jokes about genre-savvyness or “in stories” or predicting what’s going to happen based on common narrative tropes), but I still love him.
--Amber is the titular Lady Dragon and the center of an amazing work of character and narrative development on Kendra’s part. Some of you may remember a certain Goodreads status update of mine from Water Princess, Fire Prince in which I essentially expressed my desire to be Petra so I could kill Amber in a fairly painful manner. I still held that opinion at the start of Lady Dragon, Tela Du, though I enjoyed getting to see some of the story from her perspective . . . but then, as I learned more about her, my hatred began to weaken, and by Part 4 or somewhere thereabouts, I was hoping that Petra would find some loophole by which she could avoid killing Amber. But, yeah. Amber’s a sympathetic villain, and a tragic one, and a very well-written character on the whole. (Also, she enjoys writing, so who can argue with that?)
--Granite is Amber’s husband. He tends to make me sad- he truly loves Amber, and she loves him back, but her heart has been stolen by a particular aspect of her magic, and so he’s left in her shadow. He’s not evil; he’s truly a good character. But he’s bound to Amber and it’s just so sad. And he does his best to try to temper Amber’s wrath and turn her from her ways, but there’s so little he can do and yeah. I love him muchly.
--Laura is the Doorkeeper. Occasionally there’s two of her. She’s mysterious in a very friendly sort of way and tends to drop a lot of hints about the future and plot twists and everything else, and because of her role, sometimes she’s the main one moving the plot along. She also tends to do unexpected things and not really give a great deal of explanation for them until later. She’s also the one responsible for getting people from Earth to Rizkaland and back again, so, yeah. Very fun character.
--Other characters: I liked Summer and Tyler, though I didn’t connect with them as much as I did others. Ritis was pretty cool as well.
-The couples are generally adorable, particularly Reutra (Reuben and Petra) and Amber and Granite (who currently don’t have a ship name, though they should). I fangirled over them quite a bit in my beta comments . . . so much so that Kendra, at one point, literally told me to stop encouraging her characters to kiss. (Sorry, Kendra. Not really, though. They’re just so sweet together!) So, yeah. Kendra absolutely Does Not Do love triangles, which means that any difficulties in the relationship come from the characters being actual people and not from ridiculous drama and it’s a very nice change of pace from the fantasy standard.
-Family emphasis. Petra and Reuben both come from mid-sized families (each has 3 siblings) and they care very much indeed for their siblings . . . even the ones that only they remember. Their parents also play a somewhat larger role than is common in fantasy books- not a huge role, no, but they know what's going on and give advice when they can. So that's awesome. And I love Ashna's relationship with her parents and her family-related struggle at one point in the book.
-Plot twists were masterfully executed. There's one particular twist regarding Amber . . . I might've had a vague idea of "Hey, maybe this" at the very beginning of the novel, but quickly dismissed it . . . AND THEN IT HAPPENED. And it caught me totally off-guard. And as a general rule, I've read enough fantasy to see most plot twists coming- if not a mile away, then still before they happen. There's a second pretty big twist as well after that first one, and I did start getting a suspicion towards that one before it was revealed, but I wasn't sure. But both twists are really well set up, particularly on a second read-through. As I think I mentioned in one of my status updates, I kept finding hints (some rather obvious in hindsight) and I got very excited. 
-No weaponry prodigies are present in this book. I know this is kind of a weird thing to put in the "awesome" category . . . but, honestly? I get tired after a while of reading about one character after another who's almost supernaturally skilled with their weapon of choice, regardless of how much actual training he or she has had with it. In LDTD, very few characters actually end up fighting period, and the only super-amazing ones are Amber and Granite . . . but they've lived roughly 6,000 years, so, yeah, I think they would be by now.

The Non-Awesome:
-Some of the characters came out a little flat . . . and by some I mostly mean Noraeto. I feel like the only reasons he really existed were (A)as a love interest for one of the main characters, and (B)as a son and grandson for two minor characters. So, yeah. He honestly doesn't seem to do much, and on one hand, having him do more would've taken the spotlight away from Petra and Amber and Reuben and Granite and the excellent plot twists (which, let's face it, were what I was actually reading the book for), but on the other hand, if you're going to give a main character a love interest, at least make the love interest decidedly his own character.
-Part one is kind of hard to get through. It's not as bad as part one of Water Princess, Fire Prince, because there are Amber sections and those were awesome. But it also wasn't amazing, mostly because- like in WPFP- I didn't connect very well with (one of) the main viewpoint character(s). More on that in a moment. Once you get through that first part, it's much more interesting (again, like in WPFP), but yeah. Here's hoping that Kendra can break the trend in book three.
-The writing can be a little rough in spots, particularly with regards to conversations between characters. That being said, this complaint might just be the beta-reader side talking. I was looking for that sort of thing the first time I read it, and my instinct was to look again when I got the reviewer copy. Either way, it's not significant enough to be a real problem, but it can be a touch distracting at times.

The I-Don't-Know-How-I-Feel-About-This:
-Ashna. On one hand, I didn't really connect with her that well, particularly in the first section (as I mentioned before). And I did come to like her a bit better later in the book. But she still didn't quite click for me- which is sad, because I wanted to like her more than I did. She's a sweet girl, and she's a nice change from the current cliche of warlike, hot-tempered, ultra-skilled female main characters in fiction (as I also mentioned previously). But, for some reason, that click just didn't happen.
-Karyn. I hate Karyn. I really do. I quite literally spent the majority of two chapters yelling at her to shut up every time she said anything. (She was being an idiot at the time, for the record.) But there's certain other things about Karyn . . . things that would be spoilers . . . so I can't completely hate her. And she actually is a well-written character, particularly when you have all the information about her- I can understand why she did what she did. But I still don't like her, and my usual reaction to seeing her on-page is still "Shut up and go away."

Cautions:
On the whole, Lady Dragon, Tela Du is a pretty clean read. There's next to no violence and no swearing. There is romance, as previously mentioned, which is the only area of (very mild) caution. A particular aspect of Petra and Reuben's abilities give certain scenes very intimate overtones, though younger readers may not fully pick up on them. Two of the couples are married, and do sleep together (we see them go to bed and wake up; nothing in between). Couples kiss- mostly the married ones, though there's one unwed kiss (which is both applauded and reprimanded). So, there's nothing of real concern, and the two main romances (Reutra and Amber/Granite) actually provide two very good portrayals of romance and marriage- one how it ought to be, one how it can be broken and then mended.

Overall, Lady Dragon, Tela Du is not only a worthy sequel to Water Princess, Fire Prince, but it defies Second Book Syndrome in actually being far better than the first book in the series. Well-drawn characters, astounding plot twists, adorable romances, and poignant themes all combine to make this a must-read for any lover of the portal fantasy genre. 

-------------
About Lady Dragon, Tela Du:
Two girls with one face
Two girls with twisted fate
One in purple, one in red
One shall speak the other’s death
Who shall win their final war?
Lady Dragon or Tela Du?


Amber, the Lady Dragon, has been promised a fifty-year reign over Rizkaland and nothing can stop her from claiming it. But when you've lived six thousand years, fifty is such a pitiful number. Only one person can keep her from making this reign permanent - the Tela Du, a girl who shall share Amber's face.

The last thing Petra wants is a magical world interrupting her plans for a normal life, let alone an ultimate battle against the Lady Dragon with only one prophesied survivor. She has her childhood best friend, Reuben, at her side, but she's not sure if he's more of a help or a hindrance right now. Though she'd much prefer to just return home and forget about this whole crazy affair, things change when she discovers that the world has surprising connections to her own family - including her sister who disappeared without a trace two years before. Still, Rizkaland can't possibly expect her to risk her very life, can it?
Find It On:

About the Author:
Kendra E. Ardnek is a homeschool graduate who picked up a pen at an early age and never put it down. The eldest of four, she makes her home in the Piney Woods of East Texas with her parents, younger siblings, giant herd of giraffes, and honor guard of nutcrackers.  
Find Kendra Online At:

Haven't read Water Princess, Fire Princess yet?
No problem! Today's the last day to get it free on Kindle. I definitely recommend picking up a copy. It's a fun read- and, hey, who says no to free books?
And don't forget to check out today's other tour stops:
Kendra: Petra and Clara  
Interviews:  
Reviews:  
Other:  
Lianne Taimenlore - Colors of LDTD Guest Post

Thanks for stopping by!
-Sarah (Leilani Sunblade)

Thursday, October 20, 2016

Lady Dragon, Tela Du Blog Tour: Interview With Petra


Hello, everyone! Some of you may remember that last year I participated in a blog tour for Kendra E. Ardnek's Water Princess, Fire Prince, an inventive new addition to the portal fantasy genre which I really enjoyed. Now the sequel, Lady Dragon, Tela Du is out, and I'm very excited to help celebrate its release with another blog tour- particularly because, as good as Water Princess, Fire Prince was, Lady Dragon, Tela Du far surpasses it in every way. You'll hear more on that when I post my review in a few days. Today, however, I get to interview Petra, who happens to be one of my favorite Rizkaland characters ever.
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1. Welcome to the blog, Petra! To start off, can you tell my readers a little about yourself? Who you are, what you do, your favorite hobbies, tea or coffee, anything else you want to tell us?
Hello, I'm Petra Arden. I'm homeschooled and about to graduate from high school, and actually only have a semester left of college left before I get my business degree. I received my English degree last spring. My hobbies include finding weirder facts that Reuben can find, watching BBC television to keep my British accent intact, and keeping Reuben from doing anything too insane. I'll take tea, thank you.

2. What was the best part of your time in Rizkaland? The hardest?
I'm afraid that I cannot tell you the best part, because Kendra has me on strict orders to not give away spoilers. The hardest part was the first few days when I was suddenly thrust into another world and hadn't been given any sort of warning, and suddenly people were expecting me to fight a dragon and become a queen. And then Reuben....

3. Yes, Reuben- tell us about him! I know you've known each other basically forever; what's your first memory with him? Your favorite thing about him?
His mother brought him to the hospital the day I was born. Yes, we've known each other forever. As far as a first memory goes, I don't have any one in particular, because he was always just there. He's about eighteen months older than me, and by the time he was two, he was escaping his house and finding his way to my house - he lives across the street from me - just so he could play with me. According to my mom, he taught me how to walk and talk. My favorite thing about him? The fact he was always there. Somedays I honestly wonder why I put up with the guy, but ... it's comfortable to have him there. Even as random and sporadic as he can be, he's a constant that I can predict. Also, he practically worships the ground I walk on, and while it can be disconcerting, it's also kinda nice.

4. How well do you know Clara, Andrew, Kath, and Rich outside of Rizkaland? How surprised were you to find out their role in Rizkaland and Klarand?
I met Andrew once, years ago, before the car accident where he lost his mother. I don't know the other three outside of Christmas cards. Therefore, I didn't know any of them well enough to have been surprised.

5. What's the biggest way that your time in Rizkaland has changed you and the way you look at life?
I think it's given me confidence. Confidence that I can take on the world. Confidence that Reuben and I will work as a couple. Confidence that I can handle change and surprises.

6. That's wonderful. Now, time for a more fun question: if you could time-travel to any three times and places in either Earth or Rizkan history, where and when would you go?

Rizkan history is well documented, so I'm more interested in Earth's history. I'd like to visit the preflood world - or just past the preflood world so I could talk with Noah or one of his sons about the preflood world. I'd like to visit England when they were building Stonehenge so I can find out how and why it was built. And, I know you said three places, but I'd also like to visit the seven ancient wonders of the world back when all of them existed in all of their glory. Basically, I'd like to see the things that aren't well recorded.

7. Finally . . . if you could go back and change the past so that Sylvia and Sarah never disappeared, would you do that?
There is a very large part of me that would ... but when it comes down to it ... it would have changed everything. Reuben and I might not even be the friends we are now, so, much as I hate that they disappeared, I choose to be content with my life.
-------------
About Lady Dragon, Tela Du:
Two girls with one face
Two girls with twisted fate
One in purple, one in red
One shall speak the other’s death
Who shall win their final war?
Lady Dragon or Tela Du?


Amber, the Lady Dragon, has been promised a fifty-year reign over Rizkaland and nothing can stop her from claiming it. But when you've lived six thousand years, fifty is such a pitiful number. Only one person can keep her from making this reign permanent - the Tela Du, a girl who shall share Amber's face.

The last thing Petra wants is a magical world interrupting her plans for a normal life, let alone an ultimate battle against the Lady Dragon with only one prophesied survivor. She has her childhood best friend, Reuben, at her side, but she's not sure if he's more of a help or a hindrance right now. Though she'd much prefer to just return home and forget about this whole crazy affair, things change when she discovers that the world has surprising connections to her own family - including her sister who disappeared without a trace two years before. Still, Rizkaland can't possibly expect her to risk her very life, can it?

Find It On:

About the Author:
Kendra E. Ardnek is a homeschool graduate who picked up a pen at an early age and never put it down. The eldest of four, she makes her home in the Piney Woods of East Texas with her parents, younger siblings, giant herd of giraffes, and honor guard of nutcrackers.  
Find Kendra Online At:

Haven't read Water Princess, Fire Princess yet?
No problem! It's free on Kindle until the 23rd; I definitely recommend picking up a copy. It's a fun read- and, hey, who says no to free books?
And don't forget to check out today's other tour stops:
Interviews:  
One Sparrow Song - Kendra 
Dreams and Dragons - Petra  
Reviews:  

Thanks for stopping by!
-Sarah (Leilani Sunblade)

Wednesday, October 5, 2016

September Doings! (What even.)

. . . A bit late, as I warned it would be. But didn't I just do one of these? For the end of August? Wasn't that just a few weeks ago? Why am I already doing September's Doings post? Where did the time go? I think something or someone's stealing it, really. It should not be October already. However, since it is, I suppose I'd better go ahead and chronicle my Doings.

Writing!

  • Um. I . . . almost fulfilled a writer stereotype and wrote in a coffeeshop at one point? But I had to read Acts and catch up on what previously happened before I could actually start writing, so . . . that didn't happen.
  • And I wrote a paper on whether or not objective knowledge exists and is knowable. That was interesting.
  • But, yeah, I didn't get more than a few hundred, maybe a thousand, words written on both my projects combined. And editing? Ha, no.

Reading!

  • So I thought I read more than this this month . . . it felt like way more. Maybe that's just because I spent so long on some of the books.
  • As you can probably see from the picture, I've mostly continued on my children's lit kick, because obviously that's what you do when you go to college. Obviously.
  • The highlight of my purely-pleasure-reading this month was rereading George MacDonald's The Princess and the Goblin and The Princess and Curdie, both of which were just as good as I remembered them. I also read The Golden Key and Other Stories, which was a mixed bag- The Light Princess and The Day Boy and the Night Girl were good; the other two stories I wasn't as impressed with. All the same- if you haven't read anything by George MacDonald, you need to fix that. Now. Really.
  • Placing just after the George MacDonald books is The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley. I read The Hero and the Crown, the prequel to this book, last summer and wasn't terribly impressed. The Blue Sword turned out to be much better; the setting is very unique, a mix of Middle Eastern and expansionist Britain (the expansionist Britain coming in as an outpost of said expansionist-Britain-like country), and I enjoyed the story once I got through the rather slow start.
  • I also finished The Odyssey, which I read for Western Lit. I was quite sad to say goodbye to Odysseus and company after having spent four weeks with them- but oh well. Again, if you haven't read this, definitely do. (I recommend the Robert Fitzgerald translation; it's easy to read but preserves the beauty of the poetry.) Another excellent book I read for school is The Lost Letters of Pergamum, a fictional correspondence between Luke (the gospel author) and a Roman nobleman. If you enjoy historical fiction or want a fairly accurate-but-enjoyable look at the early Christian church, I'd definitely recommend it.
  • And another few miscellaneous books: The Mysterious Benedict Society and Savvy both I read on the recommendation of my roommate. I enjoyed both, though I wasn't wowed by either. And the second and third book in the Fairyland series were enjoyable in their characteristic dark-and-weird way. I think there's a fourth book, but I haven't been able to find it yet. Oh well.
  • Not pictured: The Hobbit and The Thief, both of which I reread at the end of the month. I think this is going to be the autumn of Greek-ish things, between rereading the Queen's Thief series and all the Greek/Rome-related reading I had to do for classes.
  • Also not pictured: Plato's Republic. Which I did not enjoy. At all. BUT I FINISH IT THIS WEEK THANK GOD. And the other books I have to read for that particular class all look pretty interesting. So thank God for that as well.

Watching! 

  •  My roommate and I managed four more episodes of Firefly this month. We would've watched more, except we were both rather too busy. I'm enjoying it more and more, particularly now that I understand what's going on. Mal and Kaylee are probably tied for my favorite character. And the last episode we watched showed some of Simon and River's backstory, which was cool. 
  • Yeah. That's pretty much all the watching we did together. But we did decide that after we finish Firefly, we want to start the BBC Merlin, and the BBC Robin Hood sometime after that. We'll see how long it takes us to get around to those . . . Particularly since my roomie pointed out to me that Merlin is five seasons long, twenty episodes to a season. So, yeah. That could take us a while.

 Life!

  • So. Yeah. College. My life basically revolves around going to class and doing homework. (And trying to get to bed at a reasonable time. That's important, whatever certain people say.) 
  • As previously mentioned, I wrote my first-ever college paper (not counting the ones I did for dual-enrollment classes). I think I did ok, but given the topic and the professor, I have no idea.
  • The professor, for the record, is one of my favorites- he teaches philosophy and he's very smart and kind of intimidating but also rather funny (in a sarcastic way) and good at explaining things so we can understand.
  • I also had my first exam in New Testament Lit (which actually happened in October- just last Monday- but it's noteworthy and it happened before this post went up, so it counts). I spent several days leading up to it panicking over whether or not I'd get my notes/study guide typed up in time for me to actually study. Thankfully, I did, and the test went very well indeed. 
  • Roughly two weekends ago, my Honors mentor and I met at a local coffeeshop, and then my roomie and I went to the local thrift store. Both things were fun, and my roomie and I are thinking that coffeeshop/bakery and thrift store trips are going to become a regular thing- not every Saturday, but at least once or twice a month, weather-permitting.
  • Around the middle of the month, my dad was in the area on business and stopped in to see me, which was really nice. And then my whole family came up (over? down? I have no idea how to express the direction I am from home, mostly because I just know that I'm somewhere vaguely west) for Parents' Weekend, which was even better. We had a couple meals out/off-campus, one of which was with some friends from VA, went to see some other family in the area, and generally just hung out. (And did practical stuff as well- for example, my dad helped me set up a budget now that I have an idea what kind of expenses I'm dealing with, and we installed bedrisers and an amazingly awesome bookcase/hutch in my dorm.)
  • That being said, Parents' Weekend was also Homecoming, which meant there were about three million people on campus and everything was slightly crazy. But it was all good.
  • And I've been exercising regularly. It's a requirement for one of my classes, but it's still highly satisfying. Also highly necessary, because the dining hall has ice cream and a few other pretty yummy desserts and it is very hard to say no to ice cream. Particularly when there's flavors like Oregon Blackberry Cheesecake and Banana Cream Pie and Deep Sea Treasure (which is caramel-on-caramel-on-caramel).
  • A final random thing: a few of my hall-mates and I took the New York Times' Dialect Quiz, and apparently I talk like I'm from Florida. What even. Everyone else got fairly accurate results, so I don't know what's wrong with me.

October Plans!

  • Did I mention that my life revolves around classes and homework? Because, yeah, it does.
  • In that respect, things coming up this month: a paper on "what is justice" in which I plan to reference The Princess Bride in the introduction, a midterm in Honors (which I need to start prepping for soon), an annotated outline of Ephesians (which I am not at all looking forward to doing), and, of course, the usual readings and such for all the classes.
  • Also I'm doing strength training with the weight machines in the gym in addition to doing cardio stuff. I actually started that today, and got through nine different machines, feeling pretty good about how I was doing . . . and then I tried the chin-up machine and basically died. Oh well. Nine out of ten isn't bad.
  • You know what else is happening this month? Fall break! I'm going to stay with my roommate, and it's going to be pretty fun. We're going to watch a lot of Firefly and have a craft day and I'm not sure what else but yeah. (And we'll also need to work on schoolwork, but that's beside the point.)
  • Also this month: Halloween. Which usually I wouldn't do much of anything for . . . but my dorm does a Halloween event, and so does my major, which means I get to dress up TWICE. I may or may not have been planning out ideas since September. Yeah. I'm excited.
  • Plus, Lady Dragon, Tela Du is releasing this month, which is super exciting. I got to beta-read LDTD, and let me tell you, it's amazing. There'll be an actual review going up during the blog tour, but for now . . . yeah. It's a major step up from WPFP, and I love the characters (for the most part) and the story and there's just so much YES.
  • NaNoWriMo is also coming up, as you all probably know. I won't be doing a whole 50K novel . . . but I do hope to go rebel and take on a somewhat smaller editing goal, just to participate and get working again. We'll see; I still need to figure it out. (On that topic: anyone want to win a NaNoWriMo survival kit?)
  • . . . Speaking of which, I should probably finish Fight Song. I swear I'm going to eventually. Maybe I can manage that over fall break as well?
  • And, of course, there will be much more reading done. I'm going to finish my reread of the Queen's Thief series, reread The Lord of the Rings (slowly), and hopefully pick up some new reads as well. Hopefully. We'll see how that actually works out; maybe I'll cut back on reading and work on writing in that time instead. Whether or not I do that depends if I can write on an exercise bike, though . . . We'll see what happens.
  • And I'm still searching for a church. It's slow going, especially since I have to find rides to any churches I want to visit. I've found two that I kind of like, but neither feels right, I don't think . . . maybe October will be the month I find the right one?
  • So, yeah. This month will be pretty busy. Let's hope I survive.
 How was your September? How's your October going? Please tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!
-Sarah (Leilani Sunblade)