Eccentric Circles [Paperback]

Rebecca Lickiss (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 3, 2001

The doctors said Piper Dickerson's grandmother died of old age. The elf said it was murder.

A charming debut from a writer who already shows great promise. (Charles de Lint)

A delight. Rebecca Lickiss is a strong new voice. (Kristine Kathryn Rusch)

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Scholarly, literarily inclined Piper Dickerson inherits her grandmother's Victorian cottage, an acre of land, and a large library. While the library looks to her like an opening into a career as a fantasy writer, the backyard actually is an opening into the realm of Faerie. One of Piper's first Faerie encounters is with Aerlvarim, a compellingly attractive elf, and later she meets urban-fantastical dwarves, wizards, and so forth. Yet as Piper's grandmother's death begins to look mysterious and then sinister, Faerie comes to seem not wholly benign. Without knowing exactly who are friends and who foes, and possessed of only the magical knowledge she can scrape up out of the library, Piper has to unravel the mystery, preserve her and her friends' lives against unseen enemies, and struggle for peace between the human and fairy worlds. If this is hardly an original plot, Lickiss' deft hand, eye for relevant detail, and decision to write no more words than the plot will support make the book engaging light reading. Roland Green
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Ace (July 3, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0441008283
• ISBN-13: 978-0441008285
• Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 4.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,422,495 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Happy reading on a Sunday afternoon, November 11, 2001

By 

M. Smitherman (Montana) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Eccentric Circles (Paperback)

I was looking for a nice, short, cheerful book to read in one sitting. I read the reviews for Eccentric Circles, and decided that it sounded about right. I went out and bought it within 15 minutes. I finished the book about an hour ago, and it was exactly what I had expected: a quick, yet enjoyable read.

Piper Pied has just inherited a Victorian cottage from her deceased Great-Grandmother. She isn't looking forward to cleaning up the endless piles of books that take over every room, but it might provide some inspiration for her writing. However, to Piper's great surprise, she wakes up one morning to find a breathtakingly handsome young elf called Aelvarim sitting at her kitchen table. He tells her that her grandmother didn't really die of old age, but that she was murdered. Piper must find the murderer, and fix the story that her grandmother started writing before she died. Meanwhile, Fairy and the real world are pulling apart, and rifts begin to appear; anything that touches them ceases to exist. Piper is running out of time.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, especially the humor and Piper's eccentric family. I only gave it 4 stars, however, because I felt that the characters weren't as developed as they could have been, and that the relationship between Piper and Aelvarim didn't seem as emotional as it did physical.

If you like fantasy novels with deep underlying meanings, complex plots, and believable characters, then this is not the book for you. But if you prefer a light read with humor, romance, and fairies thrown in the mix, then you will love this book as much as I did. All in all I thought it was a worthwhile read, and I will be coming back to it time and time again, whenever the mood strikes me.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Pleasant but inconsequential first novel, March 28, 2002

By 

Richard R. Horton (Webster Groves, MO United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Eccentric Circles (Paperback)

_Eccentric Circles_ is the story of Piper Pied, a twenty-something woman who has just inherited her great-grandmother's house. Piper has been drifting through life since college, trying to be "normal" despite her family's reputation for eccentricity, but never finding a good job or a good boyfriend. Then she wakes up after her first night in her new home to find an elf in the kitchen. It seems that her great-grandmother's house is a nexus between the real world and Faery (or Fairy as Lickiss spells it). The elf, Aelvarim, tells her that her great-grandmother was murdered by a denizen of Fairy, and that they must find the killer and set the story right, or the fabric of both Fairy and the Human world will be severely damaged.

Piper assumes that he is a local nutjob, but he is very cute. So she goes along a bit, and soon finds herself meeting a grouchy wizard and a pleasant dwarf and a number of little, mischievous, fairies. She is eventually persuaded to go searching for a story her great-grandmother wrote -- if it can be found, and finished properly, the rift in Fairy might be healed. At the same time she is adjusting to her new job at the local bookstore, and fending off questions from her co-workers and her family about the cute guy with the pointed ears who is going around with her.

Well, we can guess where this is going, and there really aren't any surprises along the way, and the mechanics of the plot resolution are a tad strained. But it is a pleasant, quick read, and the characters are fairly engaging. Nothing special, or worth going out of your way to read, but it passes the time well enough.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A good try, but wide of the mark, August 6, 2002

By 

R. Martin (Seattle, WA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Eccentric Circles (Paperback)

Eccentric Circles begins with the burial and wake of Piper Pied's Grandmother. Due to a happy circumstance, Piper, a struggling writer, was left her Grandmother's house, and in the midst of cleaning and organizing, she stumbles upon one of her eccentric neighbors, Aelvarim. Handsome and charming, this eccentric man is also an elf, of the realm of Faery, which Piper discovers lies right outside her doorstep if she "concentrates hard" on finding it. Far from merely introducing himself to his new neighbor, Aelvarim comes to her with a plea: he believes her Grandmother has been murdered, and he knows that the key to her killer lies in her manuscript secreted somewhere in the house.

A bit of fantastical fluff that fails to live up to its hype, Eccentric Circles was not the enjoyable read I expected from the other reviews. The writing style made it feel as if it was written for children, and yet there is the adult theme of sexual desire running throughout that precludes its inclusion within that genre. I found the constant focus of the writer on the protagonists' longing for the handsome elf to be distracting and unnerving. As a result of the small cast, the murder mystery aspect of the book proved quite dull and predictable: I would certainly agree with past reviewers in recommending to the author that a larger number of people would be advantageous in terms of plot development. Perhaps in this manner the author might avoid the constant dwelling upon the sexual tension and move to a greater grasp of her other descriptive powers, especially in the realms of character development and scene description. If you'd like to see the way a first novel should be written, read Sharon Shinn's The Shape Changer's Wife: you won't be the same afterwards.