Emerald House Rising

I enjoyed this book more than I expected to. It's definitely a first novel, but with good advisors and editors, it's got a decent prose style. The plot doesn't have a lot of surprises (other than the ease with which the protagonist masters her newfound magic and succeeds in all her adventures), and is fairly stereotypical, but the subject of jewelry making was interesting. I also liked the way she ordered her nobility, and there were other nice little details of the same sort. Not a great book, but worth reading for fantasy followers.

Please note that there are SPOILERS in this review.

Lightweight. I had been quite taken by the ideas behind the premise, specifically the patterning of gems that built the Piyar culture and the gemcutter protagonist, but the novel itself was disappointing and I particularly disliked the author's voice. While the worldbuilding is creative and ambitious, it's also very wooden. Kerr has a heavy hand guiding the story along, and the narrating throughout was aggravating. The story read like the background setup of a D&D gaming adventure.

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