Customer Reviews

Snakecharm (Kiesha'ra) Vol. 2

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I read this book having just finished Hawksong. I really enjoyed the first book and was anxious to see Danica and Zane's love bloom in this book. I also have previously read Demon in my View and Shattered Mirror and although Amelia Atwater Rhodes are too short by my standards I did like them alot. So I read this book with much anticipation, I felt like they weren't met. I loved the politics, history, war and subtle romance in the first book but I felt this book came up short in almost every aspect. Zane and Danica are hardly ever alone and although he has impregnanted her he hardly but kisses her on the hand when they are suppose to be so hopelessly in love with eachother. I felt this book was made to answer questions as to how Zane and Danica would rule both kingdoms and that was all. I thought the the identity of the falcons were obvious and although the book was only 160 some odd pages I wasn't unable to put it down like the first. There isn't much action, love or anything to that matter and I felt I myself could have written this sequel better than our author. If you loved the first book I'm not sure you should read the second, it is disappointingly dry at best.

I absolutly love Snakecharm. It may not hold well compared to Hawksong, the first book of the series, but it is a great story in itself. The message that comes to me through Amelia's book is that when people are doing the best they can to make sure their dreams come true, others seeing your effects will come along to help. This is about my third time reading Snakecharm and it is worth every ounce of time.

I was told Snakecharm wasn't as good as Hawksong, the first novel in Atwater-Rhodes' series of shapeshifting snakes and birds, but I was drawn back to the complex world of the avians and serpentiene anyway. I was recommended correctly- Snakecharm pales beside Hawksong, but I'm still glad I continued on anyway, if only to learn more about the world I'd begun to read about in the first volume.

Danica and Zane's people have fallen into peace, now that the snake and hawk are in love. It's an uneasy peace, though, and there are occasional fights and many disagreements between the two groups. Avians still won't meet Zane's Cobriana garnet eyes. Still, he and Danica continue to try to force agreement- but the announcement of their soon-to-be-born child only brings more trouble with the wondering how it can be raised to be both Tuuli Thea and Diente, when it can only be raised in either serpiente or avian fashion.

In the middle of this argument comes a powerful falcon shapeshifter, telling them that she is missing one of her people. Syfka doesn't care about the birds or the snakes- she just wants her falcon back. Zane and Danica realize that the traitor may be closer to them than they realize.

Atwater-Rhodes digs up things that were patted firmly down during Hawksong, and doesn't manage to lay them back quite as neatly. Though the concept of the new magic is creative it's hard to follow, and the true identities of some of the characters just weren't good ideas, and leaves you looking over the rest of the cast and wondering if there's other things not quite hidden.

The narrative should have been left to Danica without question. Zane isn't the same character that he was in Hawksong- not so much sly and smooth as fretful and annoying. He spends a lot of the time spelling out his feelings more than anything else. I'd hoped for a focus on his Cobriana family or other form but I didn't get one.

Snakecharm was a good read but a rather unneccessary sequel. Depending on how much you enjoyed Hawksong, I'd think about it before going to the trouble to buy this one.

After several immature fantasy novels, Amelia Atwater-Rhodes takes a strike at a more serious kind of story. Unfortunately, "Snakecharm" falls just as flat on its face as her previous books, although in entirely different ways. It has promise for the future, but the most interesting person in the entire book is Zane's infant nephew.

Serpiente Zane Cobriana and his avian mate Danica Shardae have been happily married for awhile, even if the union is making both snakes and birds uneasy. Things get even more tense when Danica faints during a ritual dance, and is found to be pregnant with a half snake, half hawk baby. Zane is initially pleased, but there's the nagging question of which kingdom the baby will rule -- especially when someone tries to kill Danica, and healing them means she will only have one.

Meanwhile, a vicious, powerful falcon named Syfka has come to the serpiente city to find a renegade falcon, and she sows doubts in Zane's mind about whether the serpiente/avian alliance will last. Zane suspects that the renegade is someone in the Royal Flight that guards Danica, but the shapeshifting magic of the falcons means that it could be anyone. He has a choice -- find and turn in the renegade, or face destruction from the falcons.

"Snakecharm" has a typical problem: the first three-fourths read as if Atwater-Rhodes was dragging her feet, trying to figure out how to deal with the problems she had brought up. Then slam-bang, she tacks in quickie answers to all of them. Unfortunately, as in her previous books, her plot twists are never explored, and the conflicts are usually fixed in a few pages.

There are some interesting concepts, such as the falcon supremacy or the concept of the blended-race "Wyvern's Court." Sadly, the falcons just become sneering, two-dimensional nasties and the Court is rapidly accepted by everybody, including Danica's narrow-minded mother. Everything falls into place easily and without dissention.

Atwater-Rhodes focuses solely on politics this time around, and her writing is equally dull and pedestrian. Apparently she has abandoned the nuances of Anne Rice's writing, and what results is un-descriptive (except for hair and clothes) and lacking in feeling. The most poetic phrase in the entire book is "heir to the kingdom of moon and mountain."

Atwater-Rhodes has plenty of characters to develop, and leaves them all two-dimensional. All but a few falcons are sneering, arrogant and evil. Zane and Danica act like a couple who is at least in their mid-forties, rather than a pair of teenagers. Danica doesn't show much spunk until the ending, and Zane is the dullest, most passionless narrator that could have possibly been chosen.

Amelia Atwater-Rhodes tries to grow up in her latest novel, but her writing is still blatantly, annoyingly immature. "Snakecharm" is proof positive that care and thought should be put into writing a novel.