Flower’s Fang by Madison Keller
An Urban Fantasy Novel published by Hundeliebe Publishing (09/13/14)
Summary:
Arara of the Jegera is bullied by her own people because she’s different. She’s a runt and has longer fur and better mind talking abilities. She plans on heading North after the ceremonial hunt with her year’s kin but when the Prince of the flower kin – Se’ls – comes to watch the hunt, things start to go awry for Arara. Prince Se’ls just wants to find a Jegera to form a Sedyu-bond with but hasn’t felt any connection to any of the candidates until he sees Arara. Sel’s and Arara are tied together by more than a potential Sedyu-bond when something is threatening the Empire and they must fight together to survive and help everyone else.
Keywords:
Flower-like people, dog-like people, power struggle, underdog, magic, secrets, standing up, fighting back, legends, prophecy, leadership, emotional, assassins, dark magic, empire, prince, bonding, runt, misfit, skills
My Review:
The worldbuilding in this story was amazing and different, but not too complicated. You can easily imagine the world, although the flower-Kin and Jegera may be a bit harder to visualize than a human. I really enjoyed the different types of characters in this world and their names and details. The Kwaso and Yaka were neat and unusual. The Jegera were the furred creatures with the unqiue ability to talk in each other’s heads using a ‘gefir.’ I really liked the concept of a gefir and the fact that some Jegera were better at it than others. The Kin were flower-like people with sap for blood and petals for good looks and vines that they wrapped up much like long hair.
The main characters in this story, however, left me quite wanting. Se’ls and Arara are both emerging ‘adults’ in their cultures, but they are amazingly childish. They both easily display every emotion they are feeling and whine and cry at the drop of a hat. They act like children, think like children, and cry like children. This book’s characters were more appropriate to a middle grade novel in the way they acted.
Arara’s main reason to leave her home town was tied into her apparent musical skill, however, after the first couple of chapters she leaves this behind and apparently doesn’t care any more about music or her wish to write music. The author forgets all about Arara’s musical ability in light of her other adventures and never comes back to this trait.
Kerka’s character baffled me. He wasn’t bad enough to be a bad guy and he never quite redeemed himself either. He wasn’t enough of a character to be bad or good or to have a turnaround moment.
I loved the fantasy elements in this book and absolutely adore the cover art but felt like there was a lot lacking in the characters.
This novel was published by Hundeliebe Publishing on September 13th, 2014 and is available on Amazon here.
TL;DR Star Rating: 3.25
Links for more information:
Rachel Author Barnard 