Review: Luminaire, by Ciye Cho

Release date: November 28, 2012
Self-published
Format: ebook, 250 pages

Goodreads description:
Being the only human in a world of merfolk... isn't easy. Florence Waverley chose to stay in Niemela, but things have gone awry. Secrets have risen and the prince she cares about has pulled away. All the while, dark dreams warn her of a tragedy that only she can stop. But in order to save the merman she loves, Florence will have to enter the Life Path tournament: a brutal test of fear and madness.

The tournament is a rite of passage--a maze where young mermaids and mermen battle to find their purpose. It is also a place where Florence will face grave danger: mermaids with evil magic, tunnels filled with sea fire, and guardians who wish to use her as a pawn in their secret plans. But will Florence be strong enough to survive the tournament... or will she perish inside it?

Everything hangs in the balance: her life, her world, and her love.

("Luminaire" is the second book in the Florence Waverley series.)


The following review is based on a copy that was provided to me by the author in exchange for my honest opinion.

You can check out my review of the first book of the series here.


Review
I really enjoyed Florence, the first book in the series, so when Ciye Cho approached me about reviewing the sequel I immediately agreed. Once more, Cho draws the reader into the colorful underwater world of Niemela, and this time the cracks in the perfect surface of the Niemelan society become even more obvious.

Florence and Rolan may have beaten the Wise Ones (creatures of the Darkness outside the underwater dome housing Niemela) at the end of the first book, but the price was steep and all is not well. With Rolan freshly crowned king and determined to change some of Niemela’s traditions, tensions form between him, his council, and parts of the general populace. With secret plots abounding, new friends and enemies revealed, and Florence herself facing a test she doesn’t feel prepared for, Luminaire was an engaging sequel that expanded the world building and set the stage for what’s to come.

It’s been a while since I read the first book, and I think I had forgotten just how rudely Florence was treated by some of the citizens of Niemela. Being the new king’s luminaire didn’t change much about that. It’s still clear that many mermen and –women see her as inferior and alien – someone who doesn’t belong and has no place in their world. And with Rolan suddenly avoiding her and being very cold and distanced after they had gotten so close in the time before his crowning ceremony, Florence feels isolated and hurt. She doesn’t want to return to the surface because there’s nothing really waiting for her up there, but she doesn’t feel all cozy in Niemela either. Also, she keeps having strange dreams warning her of danger for Niemela and Rolan. So when her best friend, princess Yolee, asks her to support her in trying to qualify for a life path (kind of like different ‘jobs’ or callings for mer in their society), Florence agrees and begins to work with the animal trainers.

Most of Luminaire focuses on the life path tournament – a once in a lifetime challenge for young mer from which they either emerge victorious and earn their place in the grand scheme of things, or not at all. It’s a giant maze under Niemela that no one who’s been through it is allowed to talk about. When the guardians in charge of it want to move the tournament much closer and Rolan is forced to agree, that leaves the novices with only days to prepare before deciding whether or not to take the test. But what does Provonox, the guardians’ leader, really want? What secret dangers lurk within the labyrinth?

As I said, the tensions within Niemela are even more obvious in this installment of the series. Florence grows once more from the shy, insecure girl she once was into a more determined and assertive version of herself. There are a few new characters introduced that I really liked, such as Wynn, a young merman following the path of the thinkers, who enjoys studying the surface world and is more open minded than many other Niemelans. Another one I eventually grew to like was Marilenna, sort of a punk-version of a mermaid who has it in for Florence at the beginning and sports quite the temper. Princess Yolee stayed her fabulous self, and I really enjoyed the friendship between her and Florence.

I admit that I was annoyed with Rolan’s behavior at times. He does have his reasons but I still don’t think the way he treated Florence was okay or all that adequately explained. I would have preferred to see them together, as a united front against danger. The hot-cold attitude of love interests in books is not a favorite trope of mine, but I guess that’s personal preference. Then again, this distance gave Florence more room to grow and learn to be independent.

With the life path tournament mentioned above, there was quite a bit of action, more than I think there was in the first book. There’s training, which also involves combat, the tournament itself, and the eventual showdown. Apart from those elements, I enjoyed the intrigues and other plot build-up that also makes me very curious about the next book! The focus is on the tournament, but there are other, more general things going on in the shadows that kept the book from feeling too ‘small’ and all about that one event, if you know what I mean.

My favorite thing though is the world building. I already thought it was very solid in Florence, but Cho managed to make the world even more real and elaborate in Luminaire by adding so many great details that rendered its workings more apparent and gave it a mythology and past it didn’t have before. Overall, I was satisfied with the sequel. The ending rounded it off well but also opened up the floor for the next book with something I didn’t see coming at all. I’m definitely looking forward to the finale of this underwater-trilogy!


Have you read Florence? Do you enjoy mermaid books in general? Does this series sound appealing to you? Let me know in the comments :)

Review: Florence, by Ciye Cho

Released: July 1, 2012
Self-published
Ebook, 336 pages

Goodreads description:
Seventeen-year-old Florence Waverley is out of her depth. Literally. Kidnapped and taken below the waves to the mer world of Niemela, she is the ultimate gift for merman Prince Kiren: a human familiar tied to his side. But nothing is what it seems amid the beauty and danger of a dark ocean.

Every Niemelan has a role to play, from the mermaids who weave towers out of kelp to the warriors who fight sea monsters. But in trying to survive, Florence will end up in the middle of a war between the mer and the Darkness. A conflict that will push her between two brothers: Kiren, the charmer inexplicably drawn to both her and the monsters; and Rolan, the loner who has been pushing her away since the day they met. But in order to take a stand--and find out where she belongs--Florence will have to risk it all: her life, her heart... and her very soul.

The following review is based on a copy I was given by the author in exchange for my honest opinion.

Review:
This was my first mermaid book, and after enjoying it as much as I did I’m now resolved to read more in the genre! The world Ciye Cho created was captivating and renewed my interest in what lies beneath the ocean. After a somewhat bumpy start, Florence and I got on well and I found myself rooting for her throughout the novel!

Florence is a very shy 17-year-old girl who had a somewhat unusual, lonely upbringing and thus finds it hard to connect to people. Everyone at her school still thinks of her as the new girl, even though it’s been four years now. Florence prefers hiding behind her camera to experience the world and tries not to stand out. On a school excursion to the beach, Florence dives too deep and is captured by a merman to be a present for Prince Kiren at his coronation ceremony. She is the only human in Niemela, a mer kingdom so deep down in the sea that it has not been detected by humans. Florence can breathe by means of a polyp that attached itself to her on her neck and must now try to navigate a culture she knows nothing about and where she stands out simply because she is human, and no humans should ever be brought to Niemela.

Beneath the harmonious surface of Niemela, where everyone seems to have their place, lies a web of political intrigue and envy as well as the ever-present threat of the creatures lurking in the Darkness that surrounds the Niemelan realm. If she wants to survive and maybe return to the surface, Florence has to grow into her full potential, stand up for herself, and make a choice: she can support Kiren, who has shown an interest in her but has questionable motives, or she can back his older brother Rolan, who has declined to rule and is a loner she nevertheless feels a connection to. Either choice will have great repercussions for both herself and the whole kingdom.

As I’ve already mentioned, I didn’t immediately like Florence or connect to her. Back in her own world, she was so awkward that I sometimes found it hard to believe and was a little frustrated. However, as soon as she arrives in Niemela, she begins to actually grow a spine and becomes a much more confident and courageous person. In this respect, I have to mention the short prologue of the book, which was a bit of a double-edged sword. It offers the reader a glimpse of the confident person Florence will become and thus motivated me to keep reading because I knew Florence would eventually change. However, it also shows her with Rolan, which immediately caused me to prefer him over Kiren when they were introduced and made me suspicious of him despite his seemingly perfect exterior. The prologue-situation is vague enough not to give away any of Florence’s reasons or the actual problem though, so I didn’t mind.

What made this book really stand out to me is the amazing world building! Even though Niemela is very foreign, I could imagine it very well thanks to the beautifully written descriptions of this extraordinary place! I can’t compare it to other mer-books because as I said I don’t know any but it was very imaginative to me and all the details formed a coherent whole of a functioning (though not perfect) society. Cho made me long to see this luminous, colorful place for myself! There were also explanations for how the Niemelans survive, how the dolphins and whales can breathe underwater despite being mammals (they also have polyps) and how the society is organized, as well as its history. All of this was managed without being info-dumpy because the reader learns alongside Florence.

The characters are well fleshed out, not just Florence but also the other main characters like Kiren and Rolan as well as their sister Yolee, as well as most of the more minor figures. I really enjoyed the close friendship developing between Yolee and Florence! It was good for both of them. The reader also gets some flashbacks when Florence thinks of her childhood and that way we learn about her parents and how she came to live with an employee of her mother’s whom she calls her uncle. There are still some open questions for me about these glimpses, and I hope they will be addressed in the sequel. Florence adapts well to Niemela, but she doesn’t fully belong and is unable to do many things that are normal to Niemelans. Then again, she never fit in that well on the surface either. One of the main conflicts in the book is thus whether or not Florence will fight to return to the surface and how much she is prepared to do for that in return when it is offered to her under certain conditions.

I can’t really say more about the plot here because it would be very spoilery. Let’s just say that there were some things that I figured out before the characters do, but also a lot of twists and surprises I didn’t see coming at all, among them the ending itself! The romantic elements are there but they do not take overhand. The story starts out a bit slow but once Niemela blossoms to life I found myself captivated and eager to keep reading, especially when the actual showdown happens.

I think this novel will appeal to readers who are new to books about mer creatures as well as those who already know and love them. It is a well-crafted coming of age story set in a place of both wondrous beauty and dangerous hidden motives. I am very curious to see what will happen with Florence after the ending and definitely want to read Luminaire, the next book in the series.

What do you think? Could this novel be something for you? Do you read many mermaid books, and if so can you tell if/where this differs from the genre? Share your thoughts in the comments :)

Waiting on Wednesday: Belladonna, by Fiona Paul

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly feature hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine to showcase upcoming releases that we can't wait to get our grabby book lover fingers on.


In this week's pick, the cover fairy strikes again:

Release date: July 16, 2013
Publisher: Philomel/Penguin
Format: Hardcover,  352 pages

Goodreads description:
In Renaissance Italy, love, lust, intrigue and secret societies converge to stunning results!

In the second in the stunning Secrets of the Eternal Rose series, Cassandra Caravello is trying to forget Falco, the wild artist who ran off with her heart, as she grows closer to her strong, steady fiancé, Luca. But Luca seems to have his own secrets. When he’s arrested by soldiers in the middle of the night, Cass’s life is once again thrown into chaos. She must save Luca, and that means finding the Book of the Eternal Rose—the only evidence that will prove he’s innocent.

So begins her journey to Florence, a city haunted by whispers of vampirism, secret soirees and clandestine meetings of the Order of the Eternal Rose. And home to Falco, who is working for the Order’s eerily stunning leader, the Belladonna herself.

Can Cass trust her heart to lead her to the truth this time?
Nothing is as it seems in this seductive thriller, where the truth may be the deadliest poison of all.

I cannot wait for this book! Cannot!!! There was this thing a couple weeks ago where you could read the beginning and that made the wait even harder... I'm so curious about The Book of the Eternal Rose fianlly showing up, after all these quotes that were in Venom! And I just knew Luca wasn't all that. Doesn't mean I trust Falco any more. And it takes place in Florence! I was there a few years ago an fell in love with the city. I hope this shows up on NetGalley... I was too late when I requested it on Edelweiss *sigh*
Have you read Venom and are also tortured by the wait? What did you pick this week?