Star of the Morning
Lynn Kurland
315 pages
I want to start out by saying that I have not, yet, read any of the other Nine Kingdoms books, but as Lynn Kurland's site lists this as the first of the series, I'm off to a good start. So far, the series looks to have 10 books, set in groups of three as to the featured protagonist; while more than half of Star of the Morning is done from a second main character's point of view, the book very much centers around Morgan, the woman seen standing on the cover above. The following two books also seem to feature her, but I don't want to put up the spoilers that the titles give; if you're curious, you can always look them up!
You cannot get much more medieval fantasy than Star of the Morning. It centers around a dark evil trying to overtake a Kingdom, a king beset by a sudden plague (of sorts), his mage brother looking for an answer, and a young woman who may be the shining light to save the kingdom... maybe. There are a lot of complications, little and big, and the ending to the book is not what you would expect. You can think of it a little in terms of King Arthur and the Sword in the Stone, but instead of pulling the sword out and ruling all of England, Arthur finds out exactly what the sword does and decides to throw it back into the weaponsmith's furnace. It's hard to describe this book without giving too much away, but there is the epic quest formula, a very strong heroine (I do not know why the book cover shows her in a dress - she doesn't wear a dress throughout the entire book), and quite a few twists and turns that fit well with the story, but can still manage to surprise an avid reader from time to time.
All in all, I did enjoy the book quite a bit, and the ending has me hooked to see how the story could possibly go on from here, as it seems the entire quest has proved fruitless and does not appear to be fixable. There is also a nice little teaser from book five of the series, Spellweaver, this one having a male protagonist, that seems equally as well written. There is a tiny touch of romance to the book that might turn some off, but it is less in the way of a romantic relationship and more an added burden of the characters having to face the difficulty in duty versus desire.
That said, I think Star of Morning is a very good, very well-written book that has a lot of appeal, though definitely is only for those who enjoy medieval-fantasy. Not in-your-face unicorns and stuff, but mostly mages and the age-old good-versus-evil battles. There really is no gender bias to this book, as the main character is a female, but the other half of the story is told through the eyes of the archmage, who is a male, so there is a very nice balance. I could also see a wide range of ages enjoying this story. It may be a bit too advanced for most middle-schoolers, depending on their individual reading level, but I can see myself having read this book as part of my free-reading selections in seventh grade, if I had had it at that point, and I enjoyed it just as much nearly two decades later.
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