Do you ever read a book and wonder how it got published? Or read
an established author and think, "Don’t they understand basic
story-telling?"
The premise of the novel has some basic flaws, like the fact
that the King and Queen of Swansgaarde can't support their twelve daughters
just because they have a son. That's some Jane Austen shit right there. It
makes you want to suggest that, perhaps, there is a middle ground between
providing twelve royal dowries and just giving your daughters a moderate sum to
live on just in case, let's say, they don't feel like exiling themselves
from their home country/castle and disguising their identity and seeking
employment in a field that could feature on an episode of World's Most Dangerous
Jobs. I mean, how about just providing a regular dowry, since Clarice is
going to marry a sailor anyways? Also, Lackey and Mallory use adverbs like
they're going out of style. Nearly every dialogue attribution was paired with a
"crisply," "mildly," "kindly,"
"moodily," and "quellingly." (Yes, quellingly.) But I was willing
to overlook these in favor of what I hoped would be a fun fantasy/romance.
And The House of the Four Winds did have some neat
elements. I am always a fan of women-in-disguise stories, pining-after-your-pal
stories, and stories that occur on ships in general. I liked
that Swansgaarde was set in a sort of alternate Europe, complete with
clear counterparts to Russia, Africa, Spain, and England. In this world, London
is called Albion and the river that runs through it is the Temese. This
provokes some interesting questions. Is the House of the Four Winds, impossible
to locate unless you have a magical amulet, located in their version of the
Bermuda Triangle? I wanted to find out more about the people that live in the
various lands mentioned. What are the differences and similarities to our
world? And how has magic shaped the history of this alternate
world? Unfortunately, these ideas aren't given any traction and the
story continues as if the world Lackey and Mallory have created is just any
other fantasy world.
The main characters--Clarice and Dominick--are likeable enough,
if stereotypical. They are noble and chaste. Good for them. The villains,
however, are comically bad. Sprunt picks on everyone on the ship, including his
cabin boy whom he has savagely beaten. He drinks too much, is dirty and smelly,
and eventually turns out to be a pirate. Also, his name is Sprunt, which sounds
like it came from a Charles Dickens novel. Likewise, Shamal is vain and
power-hungry. She doesn't really care who sees her displays of magical force or
her bosoms, which she displays to Dominick. We, the readers, are supposed to
hate her for this, especially since Clarice, in her disguise as a man, has no
means of seducing Dominick with her bosoms.
The biggest drawback of The House of the Four Winds that I
take issue with is the undeveloped plot. It seems like it was put together on a
wing and a prayer, with the authors deciding at random what events should take
place. For instance, in the chapter when Dominick and Clarice visit the House
of the Four Winds, the pirate council can't seem to decide how to treat their
visitors. They greet them kindly, proceed to bait and threaten them, and then
decide to let them go if Dominick will agree to seek the Heart of Light. When
he chooses not to, Shamal bullies him into it with magic. Every line of
dialogue is confusing and unmotivated, and I continually felt as though I was
being spun around. Perhaps that is the effect Lackey and Mallory wanted the
scene to have on their characters, but I expect a light read like this to be
relatively straightforward from a reader's perspective.
Other moments of dialogue also seemed needlessly opaque. When
Dominick anguishes about whether or not to tell the crew that he is under
Shamal's control: "'Is it you who keeps the secret, Dominick?"
Clarice asked boldly. "And not . . . another?" Another what? Another
person keeping the secret that Dominick is ensorcelled? That’d be you,
Clarice—the only other person who knows. Or are you suggesting that there’s
another secret, such as the fact that you are a woman? Clearly (as the ellipses
indicate) this is meant to be a pithy, suspenseful moment--you know, the kind that would
appear in the movie trailer accompanied by significant glances. But it doesn't make any sense!
The final conflict itself is disappointing. [MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD] First Shamal's
faithful manservant, Gregale, turns into a giant sea serpent, saving the day by
eating his former mistress and protecting the ship and its crew from the other
sea serpents, of whom he is the king, because why not? ("Why not?"
could be the subtitle for this book). This would have been cool if it had been
foreshadowed earlier in the book. Shamal could have easily gone into more
detail when describing the dangers of seeking the Heart of Light, such as, I
don't know, the fact that it is surrounded by sea-serpent infested waters. This
would have heightened the tension of their journey and would have been an easy
solution, even at the editing and revision stage. But instead the existence of
the sea serpents, and Gregale's position as their king, came out of
nowhere--very deus ex serpenta.
The most annoying part of the climax is that we NEVER SEE the
Heart of Light. The store of mystical energy which Shamal seeks--we don't get a
glimpse of it. The sea-serpent fight is over, the sailors find a bunch of
unrelated treasure, yippee, everyone’s rich, and the Heart of Light remains the
elusive mystery it always was. Even Clarice recognizes the ridiculousness of
this: "I wonder what the Heart of Light was. I wonder what Shamal would
have done with it if she'd been able to gain it." She goes on to speculate
more, but it only draws attention to the fact that . . . hello, we've been
hearing about the Heart of Light this whole time, and warned of its dangers,
and wondering about Shamal's powers, and in return we get nothing.
And
I really mean nothing. Because the primary reason I read this was for the
romance. I can read good fantasy any old time, but I read this because it was a
pirate romance. I need me some swashbuckling, sea monsters,
and sexual tension. We got the first two, but the sexual tension was lacking to
the point where, when the couple finally gets together, I was angry.
"What? That was it? He didn't even say he loved her!" I wanted
Dominick to have some confusing urges towards “Clarence”—some heated glances,
or lingering hand-clasps—but in absence of that, I wanted the revelatory moment
to include a kiss, a declaration of love, sweeping violins. Instead, he
basically said, "I thought you were a boy, so I didn't expect anything
more than friendship with you." Words to melt a woman’s heart, no doubt. It's
certainly no "You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love
you ... etc."
Actually,
can someone just write Pride and
Prejudice again, but set it on a ship? ‘Cause I would read the heck out of that.
*This review originally appeared at FantasyLiterature.com, where I gave the book 1 star.
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