Title: The Twelfth Enchantment
Author: David Liss
Genre: Historical Fantasy
Publisher: Random House
Number of Pages: 438
Source: TLC Book Tours
Lucy Derrick is a young Regency woman of good breeding and poor finances: after the death of her father, she is forced to maintain a shabby dignity as an unwanted boarder with her unpleasant uncle, fending off marriage to the local mill owner, Mr. Olson. But her prospects of even that unwanted match are complicated by the appearance of a beautiful stricken man who appears on the family doorstep begging her not to marry Mr. Olson just as he collapses. This appearance seems to open the door to a series of increasingly strange occurrences surrounding Lucy. Soon it becomes clear that there is more at stake than her own happiness — and that she is caught between two forces, one ancient and one modern — and that the soul of her very country is at stake. (goodreads.com)
I want to thank TLC Book Tours for giving the opportunity to read an ARC copy of this book! The premise of it was so different that I had to give it a try. What I discovered was I am not a fan of historical fantasy. The story itself was really well written, but for me, the action just moved too slowly and I just do not have patience for books where at 150 pg mark we are still setting up the action to happen later in the book.
I enjoyed Lucy, but had trouble understanding why the battle of forces didn't happen a tad sooner.. I gave up about 160 pages in and she had just met the bad guy, only she didn't know it yet. Patience has never been a strong suit of mine, and I realized that if the book hadn't grabbed my attention by then it wasn't going to...I feel bad for not liking it more because as I said I really liked Lucy as a heroine and the romantic love interests of hers, but after reading so many Urban Fantasies in a row, the differences in genres was just too much for me.
An interesting thing that I learned form goodreads was that I saw quite a few reviews were readers compared the characters to those in Jane Austen books, and found them to be very similar. One girl even compared the names in this book to those found in Austen books. I guess I'm just not that much of an Austen fangirl, because truthfully, I think the comparisons were a stretch and if I hadn't read those reviews I never would have thought to compare Mr. Olson to Mr. Collins, etc.
Even though this book wasn't in my normal reading genres, I'm still glad I gave it a try. For those of you who like fantasy, then I highly recommend this book. TLC Book Tours is being kind enough to giveaway one copy of this book to a lucky reader.
The Giveaway:
This giveaway is open to residents of US/Canada only. To enter please leave a way to contact you-either an email address if it's not on your blogger profile, or your twitter account. If I don't hear from the winner after 2 days of contacting them, then a new one will be chosen. Giveaway is open until 10:00pm on Mon Sept. 5th, 2011.
Other blogs participating:
Monday, August 1st: One Book Shy of a Full Shelf
Wednesday, August 3rd: A Chick Who Reads
Monday, August 8th: Fiction State of Mind
Wednesday, August 10th: In the Hammock
Thursday, August 11th: Unabridged Chick
Monday, August 15th: Bewitched Bookworms
Tuesday, August 16th: Life in the Thumb
Monday, August 22nd: Stiletto Storytime
Monday, August 22nd: Unabridged Chick author Q&A
Wednesday, August 24th: Books, Movies, and Chinese Food
Thursday, August 25th: Adventures of an Intrepid Reader
Thursday, August 25th: Historical Tapestry
Tuesday, August 30th: A Buckeye Girl Reads
Wednesday, August 31st: A Musing Reviews
