Juno, $12.95, ISBN 978-0-8095-5781-3
Fantasy Romance, 2007
Unveiling the Sorceress is set in a fantasy setting reminiscent of that of Arabian Nights. Think Aladdin and Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. Here, our heroine is Elishiba from the kingdom of Aleem who is betrothed to Mehmet, the emperor of neighboring Karseedia. Aleem is, naturally, a peace-loving kingdom while Karseedia is run by power-hungry warmongers, and Elishiba is just being the martyr to make the world a better place. However, her plans to heal the world get complicated by her attraction to Amshazar, a powerful sorcerer who is appointed by the gods to stop a rogue god from introducing evil concepts like ownership to the happy communist peace-leaving people of the lands.
Rather predictably, Elishaba learns that she is Very Special and becomes Even More Special under the tutelage of Amshazar. Meanwhile, Mehmet and his mother want to become the boss of everyone and Elishaba can’t have that, of course.
Unveiling the Sorceress is, I’m afraid, way too dull for my liking. The biggest problem I have with this story is that the good guys are uniformly bland and tediously perfect to the point that all their thoughts seem to originate from a common thought bubble. Amshazar and Elishaba are more like poster figureheads for affirmative action of some kind since they have no flaws, only save-the-world agendas. The characters’ sleeping pill effect makes it too easy for me to put aside this book whenever I get distracted by other things.
On the bright side, this book is one of those that you shouldn’t worry too much about falling into the hands of teenagers that you fear are too young to read adult materials, because while Saskia Walker also writes erotic romances, this one with its perfect positive sunshine figurehead characters can be read by young kids without having to ask their parents embarrassing questions about the main characters’ coital antics. For me, though, while this book is well-written, my issue with it is that it is probably too much like a fantasy story for very young adults for me.
