Songs of the Earth came out of no where. I added it to a to-read list simply because of its synopsis and a few reviews caught my eye. I thought, "why not?" So last night, at about 7pm, I flopped down onto my bed and began reading.

And I am so, so, so very glad I did.

It's hard to describe just what did it for me--as reading and what you like to read can be as personal and as differing as the reader itself. Was it Elspeth's perfect balance of just the right detail to make the reader see it--but not so much that there wasn't room for it to be interpreted by anyone? Was it the wonderful characteristics of each person in the book? The way she completely blind sided me (did not EXPECT That. Did NOT) by the end of the first book? Probably. All of that and more.

This is a coming-of-age story, done well. Handling the darker aspects with a grace of folding it in like an expert chef.

I can't wait to start the second book in this series and will no doubt devour it as quickly as I did the first. ( )

I wish I could remember what led me to purchase Elspeth Cooper's "Songs of the Earth." If I could only remember, I'd try to make it happen again and see what really cool book I could wind up reading next. I just finished "Songs of the Earth," and perhaps the best way to describe how much I liked it was, I immediately started reading the sequel ("Trinity Rising").

The first chapter describes a frightful scene where a young man is about to be burned at the stake for being a "witch". At the last moment, he is spared but does not go entirely unpunished. Over most of the course of this novel we see this young man, Gair, taken on and trained by an order of magicians who are able to tap the "Song" to accomplish wondrous things.

After the first harrowing scene, I was a little disappointed that that was not a harbinger of things to come. But the further I got into the book, and the closer I came to the end, the more I realized that some Very Bad Things were going to happen before the end of the story. I found myself reading faster, and for longer periods, because I had to see what was going to happen next.

While I found some of Cooper's world-building to resonate too closely to what's familiar in our own world, I found her characterization splendid. Few if any of the players in this story were stereotyped. Each was interesting in his or her own way. Each displayed believable emotions and faced believable struggles.

I'm into the next book now, anxious to see where this is all going. ( )

hb

Had to stop after a description of a man with eyes like pale blue eggs in a nest of wrinkles. Hm.

Songs of the Earth: The Wild Hunt Book 1 is a book which says as much about the times in which we live as it does about the wonderfully-created imaginary world Gair lives in. I am always perplexed by readers who choose to focus on genre before even considering the quality of writing and plotting, because, for me, if the writing takes me into a world I can believe in, I don't mind which world it is that I'm reading about, because, for me, when I'm reading it, that world is real.

And this is what Elspeth Cooper does. She takes me, effortlessly, into a parallel universe, a universe of danger, of bigotism, of hypocritical organised religion, where anything which doesn't conform is frowned upon. There are many universal truths in here, and their strength lies in the fact that they come from the mouths of the characters, not from the narrator. And they're not just truths about politics or religion; they're about the pain and pleasure of love, the excitement of discovering new things, be they within us or in the world around us. And Cooper's world is a magical one.

Some passages left me breathless with their beauty, some breathless with sadness and regret; others just let me soar beyond troubles or cares. I can't wait to start the second part of this trilogy. ( )