The Golden Yarn

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Jacob Reckless continues to travel the portal in his father's abandoned study. His name has continued to be famous on the other side of the mirror, as a finder of enchanted items and buried secrets. His family and friends, from his brother, Will to the shape-shifting vixen, Fox, are on a collision course as the two worlds become connected. Who is driving these two worlds together and why is he always a step ahead?

This new force isn’t limiting its influence to just Jacob’s efforts – it has broadened the horizon within MirrorWorld. Jacob, Will and Fox travel east and into the Russian folklore, to the land of the Baba Yaga, pursued by a new type of being that knows our world all to well.

I show more RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Jacob Reckless, our series protagonist, comes face-to-face with the hardest of adult problems in this entry into the ongoing series of fantasy Young Adult novels: "Why were love and death such close neighbours."

It's always bothered me that love poetry and love songs so frequently conflate love and death. This story, in which Jacob meets his vanished father after more than a decade of aging and growing and becoming his the man who can be a father as well as his brother Will's savior, very much focuses on this seeming dichotomy. Jacob must do what a lot of sonse must do: Come at last to understand the nature of love for a parent when the parent isn't who one wished them to be. Love and death...always sides of a coin, sometimes without much thickness between them so one side's pattern shows on the other side.

How much love costs is another thing Jacob must face in this book. He travels to a farther eastern part of Mirrorworld where we meet Slavic folklorians like rusalkas and, of course, Baba Yaga. Can not pass up a chance to call out the world-building that Funke treats us to in this series...we've had fae and (gar)goyls and sorcerous beings galore, now we get flying carpets and golems! There is so much lovely writing in the translation that evokes the differences in all the peoples of Mirrorworld that it's worth the price of admission just to be brought on Jacob's journey. Notably, as this is marketed as a young adult title, the publisher's treated us again to some lovely, evocative illustrations; again, worth the price of admission to get them before your admiring eyes.

More than all the fantasy novels aimed at adults that I've read, this series (to date) has done the most to convince me that there is a glorious amount of Story that's best told by means of fantasy tropes. There's nothing important that I don't care for in this German translation (misspellings à la anglais irk me, but not enough to knock points off for...especially from a British publishing house).

Why I'm only at four and a half stars not the full five is simply that the adversary in this tale pops up and has no reason to that I could follow. It's not awful; it's just that we've got such a fabulous set-up for this title in this quote: "The Golden Yarn...or the inseverable bond, as it is also called. As inseverable as the threads of fate," which gets vitiated by the up-popping adversary. "The threads of fate" are unquestionably the most relevant organizing pinciples here. Then, Author Funke, ensnare *everyone* in them from the get-go.

Really, there's nothing more to this than my nagging sense of "fair play" brought over from the series-mystery reading world. What works works so well that I want to be fair about your possible complaints. In dealing with Jacob's latest foray into Mirrorworld and confronting deeply ugly realities of his father, and brother, having flaws, Author Funke never once drops the thread that binds families of all sorts together.

Minor whinges be damned. The series works, and keeps working. show less

I was given an advanced reader's copy of The Golden Yarn from Goldberg McDuffie Communications and the author, Cornelia Funke, but my opinions are entirely my own.

The Golden Yarn is the third installment of the Mirrorworld series, a deep fantasy tale of love, treasure hunters, and magic. As I've done with previous reviews, I went into the book blind, hoping that the strength of the story would keep me from being out of the loop. Immediately, the story lunges into the action with the birth of the skinless prince to Kami'en, King of the Goyle, and the dollface human, Amalie. I was instantly enamored with the lyrical writing and a world that was both familiar and brand new. Funke's world beyond the mirror is based on many fairy tales, and show more despite the depth of the story, as well as the amount of characters in play, Funke's control of pacing kept the story moving. At no point did I feel bogged down by excess explanations. Instead, the narrative only lingered on past events or worldbuilding long enough to give the reader a taste for it. And it only made me hungry for more.

Though I have a general idea of what transpired in the previous two books, I still could not tell you how the story played out. At times when I read a sequel without reading the previous book, I no longer have to. The story is so thoroughly explained in the sequel, or the events are so linear that I would feel bored just reiterating what I already know. This wasn't the case at all with The Golden Yarn. I'm clamoring for the first two books, not only because I want to know more than just the little tastes I've been given, but because I know the first two are bound to be as complex as this one. Though some might be disoriented by shifting characters and titles used more often than names, I found the many characters and their layered inner conflicts so delightful. I loved seeing how these characters all intersected and then went their own ways. As well, each character had rich inner conflicts that influenced their actions. The Dark Fairy, of course, being the most obvious, especially after she sought to end the love she felt for Kami'en. I especially enjoyed Will's conflicts as well, how he was the "canvas others painted on," and how he came to deal with that.

I will say that Will's sort of "betrayal" of Clara by the end of the book (at least how I saw it) felt a little off, especially since his entire motivation for going to the Mirrorworld is to save her. And because of the high fantasy and so many shifting POVs and varying storylines, the tension can seem to lag a bit and it can be easy to be pulled out of it, at least in my opinion.

The ending worked everything together well, which I was primarily concerned with, as it can be hard to create so many "beginnings" and "endings" in the course of a series, but everything tied together in a way that felt like closure with the room for more story to be explored. There was only one plot thread, the subplot of the skinless prince, that didn't get properly resolved. I realize that it will no doubt be carried on in the next book, but it would have made such a more satisfying read if that one last plot thread could be tied back into the central story with its own little sense of "closure."

All in all, I really adored this book. I was really happy to get the chance to read it and I can't wait to look into the others in the series. If you love high fantasy, or want to love high fantasy but have a hard time with heavy writing, pick up the story of Jacob Reckless, and I assure you, you won't be disappointed.

4/5 stars. A lyrically written fantasy that tugs at the golden heartstrings. show less

Cornelia Funke has done it again! Mirror World is how fairy tales should be told; with the perfect amount of enchantment and fear. With the third installment the tale becomes more entangled with curses, first born debts and magical beings.
Funke's descriptions of the mirror people, despair, magical items, and a Baba Yaga's house are vivid.
Fairy tales were originally told to entertain, to scare and to teach; there are as many things to fear in Mirror World as there are to love. And many lessons to be learned.

The Golden Yarn is the third book in the highly enjoyable Mirrorworld series by Cornelia Funke. The prior books are Reckless and Fearless, and I recommend reading them prior to The Golden Yarn. I really loved Fearless when I read it a couple of years ago, and I think my expectations for The Golden Yarn were possibly too high. Not that The Golden Yarn is a bad book by any means – it just didn’t inspire the furor that would cause me to give it a five star review.

The premise of the series is that there exists another world from which many of our fairy tales and myths come. Jacob Reckless, a twenty something American, has been traveling through an enchanted mirror and exploring this magical world since childhood. This fairy tale land show more has not gone unchanged since the days of the stories origins and is being shaped by war and industrialization. There’s fairies, but also trains and early automobiles.

The industrialized fairy land is one of my favorite fictional worlds. There’s a depth and darkness to Funke’s creation that makes it one of the best I’ve ever seen. To often fantasy settings feel static and changeless, but Funke’s feels vibrant and alive. It also feels broad and expansive, and I liked that The Golden Yarn journeyed farther east than previous installments, taking us to an alternate version of Russia.

Something I’ve loved about the previous two books is how sympathetic the antagonists were. Nerron, Kami’en, and the Dark Fairy continue to be as beguilingly likable as ever, despite the actions they take against our lead character. In particular, the Dark Fairy is tragically compelling, and possibly not even an antagonist at all by The Golden Yarn. A newer antagonist was introduced in Fearless and is very important for the events of The Golden Yarn. At this point, I believe that he will be the main villain for the whole series.

“It was hard to let go of love. Once woven, its ribbon was hard to tear, and this one she’d woven quite firmly herself.”

Thematically, I believe The Golden Yarn to be about romantic love. Fox and Jacob’s relationship been shifting towards romance over the course of the series, and it becomes ever more important here. Meanwhile, the Dark Fairy’s relationship with Kami’en has fallen apart after he rejected her for his human wife.

When I examine why I might have liked The Golden Yarn less than Fearless, I can think of a number of potential answers. Possibly there were too many POV shifts which impacted the pacing. Maybe it’s that The Golden Yarn feels less like a self contained story and more like set up for additional books. I also think that Clara was thrown under the bus here, and I’ll be peeved if everyone totally forgets about her.

Despite those quibbles, I still loved returning to this series and would recommend it.

Originally posted on The Illustrated Page. show less

Cornelia Funke is a master storyteller.

Cosacos, espías y un zar que concede audiencia acompañado de un oso; alfombras voladoras, palacios y bosques sombríos; En esta ocasión, el espejo conduce a Jacob y a Will Reckless al Este. Jacob tendrá que afrontar las consecuencias del trato mágico que cerró la última vez que cruzó al otro lado, mientras Will sigue el rastro del Hada Oscura. Sin embargo, el propósito del viaje no lo deciden ellos, sino el elfo de aliso, que instruirá a Jacob y a Zorro en los misterios del mundo que los rodea. Guiados por el inquebrantable hilo de oro, ante el que las mismísimas hadas parecen desvalidas, los hermanos Reckless tendrán que demostrar una vez más que están a la altura de las circunstancias.

Tras «Carne de piedra» y «Sombras vivas», en los que Cornelia Funke plantea un mágico y aterrador mundo al que dos hermanos acceden a través del espejo del despacho de su padre, Siruela publica «El hilo de oro», tercera parte de la trilogía «Reckless». Cosacos, espías y un zar que concede audiencia acompañado de un oso; alfombras voladoras, palacios y bosques sombríos.
En esta ocasión, el espejo conduce a Jacob y a Will Reckless al Este. Jacob tendrá que afrontar las consecuencias del trato mágico que cerró la última vez que cruzó al otro lado, mientras Will sigue el rastro del Hada Oscura. Sin embargo, el propósito del viaje no lo deciden ellos, sino el elfo de aliso, que instruirá a Jacob y a Zorro en los show more misterios del mundo que los rodea. Guiados por el inquebrantable hilo de oro, ante el que las mismísimas hadas parecen desvalidas, los Reckless tendrán que demostrar una vez más que están a la altura de las circunstancias. show less