The Gracekeepers

An atmospheric, inventive and absorbing fantasy, in a wonderful setting, that I certainly enjoyed and was pretty much set on giving a respectable 3 stars right up to the end. Logan has created a fabulous fantasy world, covered in water after a monumental flood, leading to the formation of new class divisions of the human population; the lucky few known as landlockers who live on the tiny scrapes of remaining land and the damplings who live on water. The language could be beautiful, but I also found the phrasing slightly repetitive at times. My biggest complaints were with the characterisation and the weak ending. Although I like both the protagonists, North and Callanish, and very much enjoyed their relationship, most of the secondary characters were so flat and underdeveloped that they brought little life to the novel and this was a shame for such a novel with such fantastic promise. Above all the author too often told the reader about the characters and their relationships, rather than showing this through their actions and experiences. I think, ultimately, this debut novel needed a little more work to make it truly something special, which was demonstrated by the fairly weak ending. The ending should have been a tragedy for North and her reaction to the bear's death was no where near strong enough. I think there were a couple of problems here. Firstly, the ending was simply rushed towards the "happy ending" barely a couple of pages after the tragedy. Secondly, North's reaction was completely out of character. Finally, and most importantly, the reader never really believed the relationship between the bear (which was never even named?) and North as we were only ever told how wonderful it was, never shown. I think the inclusion of bear only highlighted the novel's weaknesses in characterisation and depth, and the novel would have been a lot stronger without it. I much preferred every other aspect of the novel, such as the story of the gracekeepers, North and Callanish's meeting and Callanish's family history.