Daughters of the Storm by Kim Wilkins

Daughters of the Storm by Kim Wilkins is a book I've been meaning to read since it first came out. It's a BFF (big fat fantasy) book about five royal sisters who could not be more different from each other. It's also set in the same world as "The Crown of Rowan"  a novella in the Year of Ancient Ghosts collection which I reviewed here.

Lying in a magic-induced coma, the King of Thyrsland is on the brink of death: if his enemies knew, chaos would reign. In fear for his life and his kingdom, his five daughters set out on a perilous journey to try to save him, their only hope an aunt they have yet to meet, a shadowy practitioner of undermagic who lives on the wild northern borders.

No-one can stand before the fierce tattooed soldier and eldest daughter Bluebell, an army commander who is rumoured to be unkillable, but her sisters, the loyal and mystical Ash, beautiful but unhappily married Rose, pious Willow and uncertain Ivy all have their own secrets to keep from her — the kind of secrets that if revealed could bring disaster down upon not only them, but the entire kingdom.

Waiting in the wings is stepbrother Wylm whose dealings with Bluebell's greatest enemy, Hakon the Raven King, would end Bluebell's dreams of revenge on his mother and propel his own desperate grasp for power.

My reading has been patchy at best, of late, and this was a good book to get back into it with since BFF is one of my first reading loves. The novella, which was my introduction to this world, focussed on Rose, one of the middle sisters, and only gave us a taste of the other characters. Daughters of the Storm, however, splits the perspective between all five sisters, with a strong focus on the oldest three. We get to know them all individually and as unique and very different characters. It's hard to go past Bluebell, the future warrior queen, but even the two youngest (and most annoying in their actions) sisters were interestingly written, even if I mainly wanted to slap them.

The main premise of the story is the king is sick and finding out how and why and curing him is Bluebell's main goal. The other sisters are dragged along with Bluebell's plans but have their own problems on their minds and their own motivations. The conflicting goals made for compelling reading, even though there weren't many layers of intrigue or an epic battle. I have to admit I was wondering where a sequel would be able to go, since it seems like everything would be resolved in the one book, but the ending made at least part of the direction of the second book clear.

I enjoyed Daughters of the Storm and I recommend it to anyone who enjoys character driven historical fantasy. The historical period the world building is based on is pre-medieval and much earlier than many other fantasy books I've come across. I highly recommend this novel to any readers who enjoyed "Crown of Rowan". I have already bought the second book in the series, Sisters of the Fire, and hope to get to it soon.

4.5 / 5 stars

First published: 2014, Harlequin Australia
Series: Blood and Gold book 1 of ? (3?)
Format read: ePub
Source: Purchased... from iBooks, I think
Challenges: Australian Women Writers Challenge

The Autumn Castle by Kim Wilkins

The Autumn Castle by Kim Wilkins is the first novel I've read by the author, though I did enjoy a novella collection of hers earlier in the year. I can also definitely state it won't be the last novel I read by the author. I should also note I read it as an audiobook borrowed from the library

Berlin in autumn: Christine Starlight lives in an artists' colony with her lover Jude, whose patience and beauty have eased her battle with chronic pain. But Christine begins to be haunted by childhood recollections of a little girl's disappearance and the flapping of a blackbird's wings. Then her world is rocked by the return of a childhood friend...

Mayfridh rules over a land where a wolf is the queen's counsellor, fate turns on the fall of an autumn leaf and mortals feel no pain. As Christine becomes addicted to Mayfridh's world, so Mayfridh grows addicted to Christine's, falling dangerously in love with Jude.

The Autumn Castle is sort of a portal fantasy in that there is the real world (Berlin in the early 00s) and there is fairyland, but a larger part of the action takes place in the real world. It's also more of a character driven story than a lot of the books I've read recently. There's no Quest and the world doesn't need saving from the start. There is a Bad Guy but several of the other characters are of dubious morality at one point or another. There are secrets, lies and conflicting desires. At a few points, I honestly wasn't sure how some issues were going to be resolved.

Christine is probably the easiest character to like. She means well and not in an offensively misguided way like some of the other characters. The chronic pain aspect was also a nice layer and I liked how it was portrayed in the book. It was something Christine was always aware of and something she wanted to avoid having define her.

The other characters were more difficult to like. Mandy, the serial fairy killer, was obviously reprehensible and irredeemable from the start. The sections from his point of view — mostly extracts from his memoires — are suitable icky and I enjoyed the way they were read in a German accent. In fact, most of the accents were pretty good in the audiobook although I was probably least convinced by the US accents of Christine and her boyfriend.

Mayfridh was an interesting character but one I increasingly lost respect for, especially towards the end. Having lived in fairyland for most of her life as a princess and then a queen, she's quite spoiled and, when she first comes to the real world, naïve about how things work. Both traits evolve as the book progresses but there were many reasons I wanted to tell her off towards the end.

The secondary characters all added significantly to the story and I appreciated the layers of complexity which we learnt as the story progressed. Several people turned out to be not quite what they seemed and there were a couple of revelations I really didn't see coming. A well-crafted story. And I liked the fairytale epilogue at the end. That was nice.

I highly recommend The Autumn Castle to fans of character-driven fantasy books. I think readers who usually don't read much fantasy would also enjoy it since, although the fantasy element is inextricable from the plot, the character-driven narrative is the more complex aspect. Assuming you like that sort of thing, anyway. There are some dark elements, so be warned: vicious murder and light torture within (but no rape, if that helps). The Autumn Castle is the first book in a "suite" of three unrelated novels (set in the same universe? I'm not even sure) and I intend to read the next one in the near future (probably as an audiobook as well; I have it in paper on another continent).

4.5 / 5 stars

First published: 2002, Harper Voyager (Bolinda Audio 2012 narrated by Richard Aspel) Series: Standalone but also the first of the Europa Suite
Format read: Audiobook
Source: Borrowed from the library
Challenges: Australian Women Writers Challenge

The Year of Ancient Ghosts by Kim Wilkins

The Year of Ancient Ghosts by Kim Wilkins is a collection of five novellas. It is also the first thing of hers that I've read (despite having bought one of her novels many years ago...). I initially bought it and started reading it because the first, titular, story was shortlisted for a Ditmar, but boy am I glad I did! Not for nothing was the collection also shortlisted for an Aurealis Award and did the same story win the Best Horror Short Story Aurealis and make the Fantasy shortlist as well.

The stories contained within this collection are a mix of modern and Medieval (ish) and take us on five very different journeys. Not being much of a historian, I didn't make the connection until the afterword, but all the stories are connected by common history. All of them, including the two modern ones, are set in or take cues from the Middle Ages.

I think my favourite was "The Year of Ancient Ghosts" and I can see why it was the story to garner award nominations when one or two others (the second is a bit murky and probably doesn't count) were also first published here. Not only is it a gut-wrenching tale, it's also probably more accessible than the others.

Of the three non-modern tales, I found myself wanting more from "The Crown of Rowan". Not because it was lacking, but because there was more to the world than we really got to see in detail in the story. I was pleased to learn, when I got to the end of the collection and read the afterword, that Wilkins is working on a novel set in the same world. I will definitely be reading it when it eventuates. (Actually, I just looked Wilkins up on iBooks and it looks like the novel, Daughters of the Storm, will be out in November, so yay.)

Individual stories aside (and you can, of course, read more of my thoughts on them below), Wilkins' writing is masterful. She has the knack of using the right words to tell the story without being unnecessarily flowery in language nor too dull. I'm not sure there was a bad sentence in the entire collection. The details, historical and otherwise, are also meticulously researched so that every detail rings true. I first noted it in the main character's reaction to having to go to a foreign supermarket in "The Year of Ancient Ghosts", but it persisted throughout.

I highly recommend this collection to pretty much everyone. It's an excellent read and the expertly-crafted stories will not disappoint. I will definitely be keeping an eye out for other books by Kim Wilkins (the one presently in my TBR is unfortunately on another continent) and I look forward to reading more of her work.

~

THE YEAR OF ANCIENT GHOSTS — Set in the present, a woman whose husband is in a coma (or similar) decides to go to Scotland (from Australia) with their two-year-old to visit his foster parents as they had originally planned. It’s a cold story (sometimes literally) with a feeling of creeping dread permeating through it. I feared for some of the characters, not sure how far into the realms of darkest horror Wilkins would take it. In the end, all I can say is: it was a wonderful and emotional tale.

THE CROWN OF ROWAN — This was a good story, but I was expecting it to be more dire than it was. It's set in a fairly low-technology fantasy world with small kingdoms, skirmishes and minor magic (hedge magic, maybe, although it wasn't defined in the story) and gives us a pretty good snapshot of what life is life for some of the characters, most notably the protagonist. The wife of a king is pregnant and the story follows her through the course of the pregnancy until just after the baby is born. There are also a few subplots, but she's the main focus. I said I was expecting it to be more dire, that's mainly because of the element of magical portents and messages but also because it finished too soon. Wilkins left us wanting more with some of the main character's choices hanging in the balance. I wanted to know what happened next!

DINDRANA’S LOVER — An Arthurian tale featuring Sir Percival's sister, Dindrana. There were a few elements to this: a magic castle that only the lost can find, with a mistress whose nature is hinted at in the epigraph, and a young maiden who, on the one hand can think on her feet and on the other resents being forced to remain a virgin until her eventual marriage to (she presumes) some horrible old man. I was amused by this tale, for all that it didn't end too cheerily. Oh, and I wanted to slap Galahad.

WILD DREAMS OF BLOOD — A present-day tale of a woman with super strength who has learnt to hide it her whole life. Her life starts to change when she finds out who her father is. A fairly straight-forward story, but very well-crafted.

THE LARK AND THE RIVER — Set in Conversion England, as Christianity is encroaching on heathen beliefs. Although not the saddest story in the collection (that honour goes to “The Year of Ancient Ghosts”), it had the saddest ending. Other people might disagree. The main character is the daughter of a violent man and, despite her father's anger at the church, she becomes fascinated by the new priest.

5 / 5 stars

First published: 2013, Ticonderoga Publications
Series: no
Format read: ePub
Source: Purchased from SmashWords
Challenges: Australian Women Writers Challenge, Aussie Horror Reading Challenge