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Royal Airs Elemental Blessings Sharon Shinn 9780425261712 Books

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Royal Airs Elemental Blessings Sharon Shinn 9780425261712 Books

This is actually a nice book, but Sharon Shinn set the mark so high with „Troubled Waters”, the first novel in the „Elemental Blessings”series that this one unfortunately falls short of great expectations.

The major „problem” is with the main characters Josetta, Princess of Welce -one of the possible heirs to the throne - and his love interest Rafe Adova, a guy with a mysterious past, who seems to be standing above the elemental blessings (he does not have any and always gets the extraordinary ones: time, synthesis, triumph) that govern the Welchin society. And this „specialness” is actually one of the major drawbacks for Rafe: he seems to be without any interesting character traits. Yes, he is nice, yes he is adventurous, yes, he likes to gamble , yes, he only pulls ghost coins from the wells of blessings, but nothing else really and this gets so often repeated about him that gets slightly annoying.

As for Josetta, she also falls under a similar fate: she is nice, kind, caring, the lovely girl next door and yet her character is not enough to carry the novel forward even combined with Rafe's story. Their romance is much more pronounced than Zoe’s & Darien’s in the first book, but it does not help.

The novel relies strongly on the great supporting cast of characters from the first novel – thank God for Zoe, Darien, Corene, Alys, the other Primes - & on the secondary plot of who should ascend the throne of Welce. This one was way more interesting & intriguing than the nice, but straightforward & boring romance of Josetta & Rafe.

Flying machines? Who cares, just give me the political intrigue Sharon Shinn is soooo very good at.


Tags : Royal Airs (Elemental Blessings) [Sharon Shinn] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers.   Master storyteller Sharon Shinn created the thrilling and enchanting world of Welce in her acclaimed novel </i>Troubled Waters . Return with her to that elemental universe in this tale of secrecy,Sharon Shinn,Royal Airs (Elemental Blessings),Ace,0425261719,Fantasy - Contemporary,FICTION Fantasy Contemporary.,Fantasy fiction.,Magic;Fiction.,AMERICAN SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY,Fantasy,Fantasy - General,Fiction,Fiction - Fantasy,Fiction Fantasy Contemporary,Fiction Fantasy General,Fiction-Fantasy,GENERAL,General Adult,Magic,Monograph Series, any,United States,bisacsh,gsafd

Royal Airs Elemental Blessings Sharon Shinn 9780425261712 Books Reviews

As in most of Shinn's novels, this book is an exploration of people in interesting (and sometimes unusual) situations. As has been mentioned, this book is a continuation from 'Troubled Waters' with most of the same characters but with a different focus. The plot has been described in prior reviews, so I won't bother here, but I, too, liked learning more about Josetta and her choices. Shinn is one of the few fantasy/scifi writers who delve into controversial areas; she has written, with accuracy, about, for example, racism, religious persecution, cultural subjugation, a serial killer, child abuse, and incest - topics rarely explored in other than distopian literature (or in George R. R. Martin's 'everything but the kitchen sink' books). In this book, there is a minor (though important) character who is likely autistic, and her affliction is treated with sympathy and accuracy. One other area I enjoyed in this book is the broadening of the geography involved. In 'Troubled Waters', the land of Welce is explained, and one other area is important to that plot, but few other countries of this world are barely mentioned. In this book, two other countries - and parts of their cultural paradigms - play critical roles in the plot, thus enlarging the possibilities for future volumes - something about which I can only cheer. With luck, we will have futher books dealing with the other elements (wood, fire, and earth) and maybe even the extraordinary blessings of triumph, time, and synthesis. I can dream.
I really like this book! Shinn has tied the first one in well with a five year gap, time enough for characters to grow and mature into main people. Alys is even more hateful, Zoe is even more interesting. I hope Shinn finishes this out, I'd like to see Correne grow from the willful and unwanted girl that she is at the end. I liked the main characters Rafe and Josette. They are real people who do good and bad things, they feel anger, fear, joy all of which Shinn shows in a masterful way. You won't find trite stilted conversations in this book. They are likeable interesting characters in a book full of the same. Josette is not a weak woman waiting for her Prince charming, Rafe is not so good/handsome/boring that he is unreal or annoying. Now I'm going to go read the first book again!
This is the sequel to Troubled Waters—in my case, at least, “long-awaited,” in that TW appeared in 2010, and I don’t usually expect to wait three years between installments of what was clearly intended to be a series. But I guess her “Shifting Circle” books got in the way. I’m assuming that there are three or four more books in this series planned, since the “Random Blessings” that are central to the milieu fall into five elemental categories—the traditional earth, air, fire, and water, plus wood—and a set of three “extraordinary blessings.” (The five “elements” from the natural world are paired with five human attributes—respectively flesh, soul, mind, blood, and bone.) TW set up the world and told the story of Zoe, who became the water prime, and Darien, whose main element is wood, along with many more peripheral characters. This one centers around Rafe, a professional gambler whose every attempt to draw blessings has produced only “ghost” coins—so worn that their attributes are illegible—and Josetta, a princess who was a minor character in TW, and whose blessings are all air. After Rafe rescues Corene, another princess who was a minor character in TW, and she sends for her older “sister” Josetta (they are in fact not closely related biologically, but were raised together), Rafe and Josetta are attracted to each other. She arranges for him to have a job interview with the inventor and industrialist Kayle, the prime of air and rather an oddball, if brilliant. Kayle comments that Rafe’s biological parents were neither of them from Welce, the kingdom where both these books are set—his air-prime powers let him know that, though not what country they might be from. Rafe has no memory of living anywhere but in Welce—first some faint memories of living with only his mother in the Welchin capital, and then more of living with her and a stepfather on a farm until his mother’s death and a restlessness drove him back to the capital as a young man. Technology in Welce seems to be about the level of the early 1900s in our world—Kayle had invented “elaymotives” (automobiles) a decade or so earlier, and is now working on “aeromotives,” flying machines whose operation is rather vague, although Rafe learns how to fly them. But someone wants Rafe dead for some reason… I won’t say more about it, but I really liked it (of course, I really like almost all of Shinn’s work) and recommend it highly. I just don’t want to wait another three years for the next book in the series (which I guess may well be “fire” and feature Corene and probably Rafe’s half-brother Steff—at least, there don’t seem to be any potential wood- or earth-blessed characters floating around as of the end of this book).
This is actually a nice book, but Sharon Shinn set the mark so high with „Troubled Waters”, the first novel in the „Elemental Blessings”series that this one unfortunately falls short of great expectations.

The major „problem” is with the main characters Josetta, Princess of Welce -one of the possible heirs to the throne - and his love interest Rafe Adova, a guy with a mysterious past, who seems to be standing above the elemental blessings (he does not have any and always gets the extraordinary ones time, synthesis, triumph) that govern the Welchin society. And this „specialness” is actually one of the major drawbacks for Rafe he seems to be without any interesting character traits. Yes, he is nice, yes he is adventurous, yes, he likes to gamble , yes, he only pulls ghost coins from the wells of blessings, but nothing else really and this gets so often repeated about him that gets slightly annoying.

As for Josetta, she also falls under a similar fate she is nice, kind, caring, the lovely girl next door and yet her character is not enough to carry the novel forward even combined with Rafe's story. Their romance is much more pronounced than Zoe’s & Darien’s in the first book, but it does not help.

The novel relies strongly on the great supporting cast of characters from the first novel – thank God for Zoe, Darien, Corene, Alys, the other Primes - & on the secondary plot of who should ascend the throne of Welce. This one was way more interesting & intriguing than the nice, but straightforward & boring romance of Josetta & Rafe.

Flying machines? Who cares, just give me the political intrigue Sharon Shinn is soooo very good at.