Customer Reviews

The Conjurer Princess

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The Conjurer Princess is a modern sort of fairy tale-- dark, quirky and bittersweet. All the usual cliches are avoided successfully. Lylene is not a sweet and beautiful princess; closer to a determined and basically honorable person on a quest that is not what she thinks it is. Those who appear to be enemies are not what they seem...nor those who seem to be allies.

The ending, like those in all of Vivian Vande Velde's books, is not quite a happily-ever-after conclusion. Left wide open to speculation about the future...If you're looking for a realistic and biting fantasy in which nothing is ever quite as it appears, give this one a try.

I really enjoyed this book. I'm a fast reader and due to that my reading habit costs quite a bit of money, yet reading VVV's books make me read them even faster because of the level of suspense and I never want to put them down. This doesn't bother me at all because I go back and read them again and again because I love them. This is the third book I've read by VVV and although her book Companions of the Night is my favorite this book is much better than the Changeling Prince and if you have to chose between the two of them better choose this one!!

Lylene is not your average sixteen-year old. Instead of obsessing over what to wear, or who to marry, she is more concerned with saving her sister Beryl's life. In the Conjurer Princess, the young heroine of the story faces many tough challenges while befriending two handsome men. I picked up this novel while at a book fair in my school several years ago. Within that time span, I must have read this book 10 times or more. It's a truely great book; it's of fantasy genre, so of course I would love it. I believe this to be Vivian Van Velde's greatest work. I've read Curses, Inc. but couldn't really get into it, and I've also read Companions of the Night, another great book, but did not intrigue me as much as Conjurer Princess. This should be a must-have for all fantasy lovers!

This book is a great book that had me on the edge of my seat. Every chapter has great twists and unexpected turns. The main character, Lylene, is on a mission to rescue her "pretty" sister after she was kidnapped on her wedding day. Lylene seeks the help of the wizard, Harkta. He agrees to teach her magic but Lylene was less than satisfied with her new 'powers'. She stops at a small inn in a strange town seeking the help of anyone who will help her retrive her sister. She makes two unexpected friendships when she meets Weiland and Shile, two traveling friends who help Lylene out of a sticky situation. The trio set out on an exciting adventure that lead them through twists, turns, death, betrayal, magic, suspicion, and even a little romance. This is a fantastic novel that I would anyone who likes great books.

This is only the second book I read by Vivian Vande Velde, and it was very good. It is a quick fun read, but don't let that throw you off the deeper point - the cost of magic, and the responsibility that comes with having it.

Lylene's sister Beryl is kidnapped on her wedding day by an evil bandit, who kills several people in the process. Furious, Lylene decides to learn magic in order to rescue her sister. However, the magician tries to trick her, and in the end, she winds up being able to duplicate any object she can touch. The catch is she becomes about 80 years old! She is able to wish her years off onto anyone that she can touch though.

She leaves the magician and soon takes up with two bandits. They decide to help her, not that they have much choice after they have the whole county after them, but well.... And the rest of the story is about how she rescues her sister. Except at the end there is a twist that NO ONE sees coming, so I won't give it away. The ending is sad, but satisfying and has a good moral. I just want to know what happens to Lylene and Weiland!

Beryl is abducted on her wedding day by a rival noble, the groom killed, and the church turns a blind eye to the whole episode. Frustrated and seething for revenge, Lylene, Beryl's younger sister, sets out to save her sister and bring justice upon her abductor. Consulting first an immoral wizard and then taking up with an amoral but kind pair of mercenaries, Lylene's quest gains her magical powers, maturity, enemies, loss, and friends.

Vivian Vande Velde is a master at creating entertaining stories with fast-paced plots, wry humor, and snappy dialogue that keep the reader thoroughly engaged. Perhaps even more important, however, is her ability to create multi-dimensional characters who are both flawed and endearing. The Conjurer Princess contains three of my absolute favorite literary companions and gets a well-deserved spot on the "Special Shelf" of books that are near to my heart and have been read and reread countless times.

An fantasy/adventure that had great potential!

I picked up this book as I was looking for something to read at the local library and despite the 'Harlequin Romance' like cover I decided to try it.

Some likes and dislikes...

The Pros:

1.)The core of this book was developed around a very intriguing and interesting fantasy twist, i.e. the unique talent(s) this heroine had been given.

2.)The character developments were fairly well done; reasonably genuine and believable people with traits the reader will identify with, and either like or dislike as the case may be.

3.)The story itself was very good; it had the potential for being developed into a major stand alone work or maybe even an ongoing series.

The Cons:

1.)Although there were some great moments in this book, I found a few areas in which some of the writing was rather weak; especially with dialogues between characters in some situations.

2.)The book was quite short; just over 200 pages, so some of the miraculous escapes (especially at towards the end) were done with out much explanation and generally seemed to lack detail. I had the feeling the author just wanted to get this work finished and said the heck with a realism or attempting to put more plausibility into the latter part of the story.

3.)And finally, one personal concern. When I mentioned above that the cover had a 'Harlequin Romance' appearance to it...well so did an ongoing and undercurrent theme of this story. Unfortunately, the 'romance' aspect seemed to become more dominant towards the latter part of the book, and this may have been the reason that the description of the 'escape' near the end seemed to 'suffer' in relative importance, receiving less attention than it deserved.
To me I guess it comes down to this; if you like your high fantasy 'burdened with swooning hearts' well fine and good; but not for me, thank you very much. It's just that I like fantasy that tends (by and large) to separate the its action from the romance.

Conclusion:
A fantasy/adventure that was so close to being great. The 'gift?' the heroine had, was extremely interesting; so much more could have been done with some better writing (in spots), providing some added descriptions and substance. One had the feeling that a good editor could have really helped polish this story and subsequently raised the standard to a greater height. 3 1/2 Stars.

Ray Nicholson

VVV has written another great book, a sorta prequel/sequel to the great book "The Changeling Prince", although I have to agree with some of the other reviewers, she ends it too quickly. I loved Shile and Weiland and was very MAD when Shile, y'know...(i don't want to spoil it)...And I didn't like how Lylene was old/wrinkly half the book. But overall, it was pretty good.

I have read this book and the Changeling Prince. I like this story line, but it is extremely frustrating to read. She never quite finishes her stories. It is almost like she gets to a certain point and decides that the story is long enough, so she suddenly ends the story. Like the ending to this one. One minute they are hating each other, the next they are traveling off down to who knows where like they are friends. The Changeling prince is the same way. It is one of those type of books that you can't put down, yet really agravates you because of the way things are left undone. I would read another in this series to find out if she is going to end it, but none of her other books, because it is too frustrating.

I almost didn't read this book,but I am very glad I did.It's exciting and keeps you reading nonstop until the end.Lylene is not your average girl,and the ending is definetly not what you expect(I thought it was kind of funny,though others may disagree).I only wish SOMEONE would write a sequel!