Book: The Fire Rose

Mercedes Lackey
Fantasy
Baen / 1995
Hard Back / 448 Pages
Series Elemental Masters #1

Rosalind Hawkins is a medieval scholar from a fine family in Chicago. Unfortunately, her professor father has speculated away the family money and died, leaving young Rosalind with no fortune and no future. Desolate with grief, forced to cut her education short, she agrees to go West to take a job as a governess to a wealthy man in San Francisco. A boom town in the 1850s, in 1905 San Francisco is the center of culture in the new West, and perhaps there she will rediscover a reason for living. But when she arrives at Jason Cameron's mansion on a hill overlooking the Pacific, she discovers that there are no children, not even a wife, in residence: just the gentleman himself and his enigmatic manservant. Penniless, Rosalind stays despite her misgivings. For the household is very odd indeed. Despite there being but one servant, the huge house is immaculate and food is prepared and served in the most elegant manner. Oddest of all is the master of the house: Rosalind never sees him, but communicates only through a speaking tube, and only at night. But then...she is happy. For her job in the household is to read to him: Latin, French, Greek, German - and she feels herself coming alive once more. As for Jason Cameron, through his contact with Rosalind, he, too, is renewed. An Adept and Alchemist, Master of the Element of Fire, he had attempted the old French werewolf transformation - and bungled it. Stuck in wolf form, over the years he had slowly been losing his humanity. Rosalind is bringing it back to him. But when a rival alchemist offers Rosalind the chance to restore her family's fortune in exchange for Jason's secret, who will she side with? And then the earthquake strikes....

I picked this book up because I was intrigued by the picture on the front of the book

What I liked the Most? The twist on the traditional fairy tale

What I liked the Least? Paul DuMond’s slimely yucky butt – but hey you are supposed to dislike him lol

Review:Wahoo – a twisted version of Beauty & the Beast. Wonderfully written & conceptually stunning. I enjoyed the tale as kind of a sweet treat to be picked up on rare moments not something to make a meal of.

To make this a fair review I do have to criticize the over use of italics it really pulls you out of the story at times.

Sidenote: there is apparently some confusion with this book as to whether or not it is part of the Elemental Masters series. I choose to put it with the series because even though it is set in a different area of the world – it is very much similar to the concept

Recommended to: Fans of fantasy

Book: Unnatural Issue

Mercedes Lackey
Fantasy
Daw / 2011
Hard Back / 361 Pages
Series Elemental Masters 7 (Donkey Skin)

Susanne Whitestone had always lived in Whitestone Manor, her ancestral home in North Yorkshire. She was the daughter of a country squire, but life for Susanne was no different than it was for any of the many servants in her father's great house. For though she was Richard Whitestone's only child, she had never set eyes on her father, who lived as a recluse in a sectioned off wing of the manor. But Susanne was happy; raised by her father's warm and loving servants, it suited her to do simple household chores, work in the dairy, and tend to the extensive grounds that lay beyond her father's private inner gardens. For Susanne was an Earth Master, and liked nothing more than to keep the land itself and all of its animal inhabitants--both mundane and fae--well nourished and thriving. And Susanne was surprisingly well-trained as a mage of the Earth, despite her father's neglect, because for the last eleven years, she had had a special friend in the forest--a powerful fae being known only as Robin. Robin had taught Susanne since she was ten, and he had given her such a thorough education that Susanne doubted that any mortal Master could find fault with her practices.

Richard Whitstone was also an Earth master, but since his beloved wife's death in childbirth with Susanne, he had lived a kind of half-life in his secluded and isolated section of the great manor. He hated even the thought of the child who had ended his wife's life, and had refused to acknowledge or care for his daughter. His life had withered, and his spirit had contracted into a hard, cold thing. As he had grown bitter, twisted, and blighted, so had everything he could see from his windows--his once-beautiful gardens were now as stark and withered as his own heart. But as the years passed, Richard found that there was one thing that gave him solace--the thought, first just a fleeting thing, then later an obsession, that he could bring his Rebecca back to life through the dark practice of necromancy. He would need an appropriate vessel for her spirit, a young woman, preferably one who looked like she did and was approximately the same age that Rebecca had been at the time of her death--twenty-one.

Meanwhile, in London, Lord Alderscroft, Head of one of the oldest and most powerful White Lodges of Elemental Masters in the Empire, had serious worries. There were intimations of trouble on the continent--not of just a small conflict, but war on a scale that had never been seen before. Alderscroft had dispatched many of his Masters to the continent to try to avert this coming disaster, and was functioning with a fraction of the support he usually had at his disposal when reports of Blood Magic came to him from one of his mages in Yorkshire. With his lodge depleted, Alderscroft had no choice but to send Lord Peter Almsley, one of his most powerful operatives, up north to find and dispatch this mysterious necromancer. But will Lord Peter get to Susanne in time?

I picked this book up because Series

What I liked the Most? Peter (The “Rich” Twin) is back – I really like him

What I liked the Least? Biggest issue the phony fake illusionary romance that’s not a romance and what’s up with Rose.

Review: The opening chapter shows us Earth Master Richard Whitestone returning home from a dastardly necromantic battle only to discover that his beloved wife has died in childbirth. He dramatically blames the child and tells the help to rid him of it and then locks himself away in his dusty, magic filled tower.

Dun-dun-duuuuun - 20 years & the story takes off – the baby (Susanne) has grown up and matured into a feisty country lass unsure of her position (neither staff nor family), but very sure of her magical knowledge due to her very interesting teacher. One day, Richard sees her walking out of the woods and latches onto the idea that his wife has come back from the dead. When that fails to be proven true he becomes what he once hated & turns to necromancy to return his wife to him via his daughters body.

I did not care for Richard’s misogynistic notations – finding them to be simplistic and utterly boring, but the father as the villain – well played.

I do feel that the "love triangle" was a complete waste of time & paper – it should have either been more of the story or left out, I don't really care which.

All in all a fun read that delighted me.

Recommended to: Everyone

Best Quote:

Elemental Masters Series

1. The Fire Rose based on Beauty and the Beast
2. The Serpent's Shadow based on Snow White
3. The Gates of Sleep based on Sleeping Beauty
4. Phoenix And Ashes based on Cinderella
5. The Wizard of London based on The Snow Queen
6. Reserved for the Cat based on Puss in Boots
7. Unnatural Issue based on Donkeyskin