A Thousand Glass Flowers (The Chronicles of Eirie) [Kindle Edition]

Prue Batten (Author), John Hudspith (Editor)

Book Description

Book Three of The Chronicles of Eirie Silver Medal winner of 2012 READERS' FAVOURITE Book Awards.

Highly recommended! Prue Batten leads the way with elegant adult historic fantasy. the Eirie Chronciles set the bar for modern fantasy authors wanting to tread the fine line between reality and fantasy. A fairy tale for the twenty-first century. - Saffina Desforges, Kindle UK best-selling author of Sugar & Spice

Two people… one an extraordinary young woman, the other an embittered immortal man. Both seeking concealed spells that could annihilate Life.
In a quest through a world where Others lace their way in and out of the lives of mortals, this is a story of legend, love, and clashing ideals. A story of murder, regret and revenge… a story that journeys across a world too hauntingly like our own.

'A sweeping, gorgeously written tale of magic, adventure, intrigue--and the very human power of enduring love. It held me spellbound.' - Anna Elliott, author of The Avalon Trilogy

'A magnificent evocation of a parallel world whose joys and sorrows are our own. Beautifully done.' -- Ann Swinfen, author of In Defence of Fantasy.

‘Well-written fantasy recommended … to all readers who enjoy their love stories filled with hope and magic. This is a story that you will not easily forget and one that will touch the depths of your hearts.’ - Reviewed by Sylvia H. for Readers Favorite with Five Stars!

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Prue is a fantasy and historical fiction writer who lives in Tasmania, the island state of Australia. She and her husband farm a woolgrowing and cropping property southeast of Hobart. They farm merino sheep and produce a clip of the famous Australian superfine wool that is sought after in Europe and China. When she's not working with her husband in the paddocks and sheepyards, her less professional interests are embroidery which she calls her sanity saver, gardening, her dogs, boating, kayaking... in fact anything to do with the sea. A university graduate with a Bachelor of Arts degree with majors in Political Science and History and post graduate qualifications in librarianship, in a past life she was a TV and Radio researcher/presenter with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Currently working on the second in the Gisborne series, Book of Knights, Prue has four books published - three fantasies, all part of The Chronicles of Eirie and one historical fiction - the first in the Gisborne series, entitled Gisborne: Book of Pawns.

Product Details

• File Size: 568 KB
• Print Length: 396 pages
• Publisher: Darlington Press; 1 edition (August 22, 2011)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B005IL1XB6
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• X-Ray: Enabled
• Lending: Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #356,247 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars PRUE BATTEN'S WORDS EMBROIDER A BRILLIANT MAGIC TALE August 31, 2011

By MARIA GRAZIA

Format:Kindle Edition

I know it may sound exaggerated, but words can make fantasy true to our mind eye. Finely-chiselled, preciously embroidered words can materialize what we only dare fancy about. Prue Batten is very good with words, her talent to create characters and places and to make them true to her readers is undeniable.
Imagine the magic, exotic world of "A Thousand and One Nights". Add a dark, damaged, doomed hero whose attractiveness is magnified by his power to mesmer. Make him engaged in an adventurous quest to save not only his dear but the whole world from his wicked antagonist. Let him meet an extraordinarily beautiful, brave young woman and join forces with her in his fight. Accept that they discover and face their fate, united against their evil opponent. Enjoy their magic company of djinns, afrits, siofras. Prepare to a thrilling ride through bittersweet, romantic, gothic, tragic, funny, frightening, moving moments. Do you think you can make all that?
The two protagonists are two lonely souls, brought up experiencing very little love in their lives. Fear has always been their mute only companion in their respective solitudes.
Finnian was raised by his grandmother, Isolde, who hated him and punished him with her whip at any little sign of disobedience.
Lalita was left to the care of her loving uncle and aunt after her parents' death. But while her caring uncle and aunt were away on business, she was left with her greedy, wicked uncle Kurdeesh who sold her to the Grand Vizier for the Sultan's harem.
Lalita is a scribe with stunning talent in her craft. She can't renounce her freedom, she can't bear being taken as a slave in that golden cage which is the Sultan's harem. Moreover, her beauty and her talent soon bring enemies to her among the other women there.
Finnian is a Faeran, one of the Others. He can mesmer and make himself invisible. "An eye for an eye" is what he believes in. He doesn't believe in Fate, but he will have to change his mind. He has no other ambition in life that revenge against his evil grandmother. He doesn't feel guilt or regret. In order to totally defeat Isolde, he has to find the magic Cantrips and then destroy them . But then he meets Lalita and his task becomes even harder.
"A Thousand Glass Flowers" is a magic tale which has hold me hooked not only while reading it but even after that. It was not so easy to get out of its atmosphere, leave Eerie or farewell Finnian and Lalita. They stay with me as unforgettable. I'm sure they'll stay on for long. In my memory and in my heart.

14 of 18 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A perfect fairy tale epic August 30, 2011

By Patricia Sweet

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

We''re so familiar with fairy tales from our childhoods that we think we know them, but we don't (including the odd fact that they rarely have any fairies in them). They are so far from modern realistic fiction, even though we class them all as stories, that we forget how strange they are. The iconographic nature of the characters, the incantatory sound of the narrative, and the detachment of a story that by definition is told second hand, are very distant from the modern novelist's intent to sweep the reader into the story for a cinematic, personal, total-immersion experience.

A Thousand Glass Flowers is the only novel I've ever read that seems to be told from inside a fairy tale. The prescriptions of the form are the laws of nature here, inherent in the physical world and in the speech and actions of the characters. Prue Batten's world-building in her Eirie novels has always been minimalist; every carefully rationed and delicately stitched detail is all the more memorable and effective for it. World-building can become the writer's biggest self-indulgence in a fantasy series, a case of literary all-dressed-up-and-no-place-to-go. If fantasy novels in which every map, medicinal herb, language, genealogy, recipe and law of magic is cataloged can be thought of as a 15th century Flemish painting, with a highlight and shadow on every pearl, Batten's world is watercolor.

In A Thousand Glass Flowers Batten picks up the story and characters of her two earlier novels. The Cantrips of Unlife must be hunted down and destroyed before the Big Bad finds them first and uses them for evil (a more modern fairy tale trope). In two parallel stories, Finnian and Lalita each seek the Cantrips for their own ends, and in their journey discover connections to each other and to the past.

In a wood full of malicious enchantments, Finnian leaves Lalita to find horses at a nearby farm. The farm is deserted, which made me realize that the whole novel feels eerily empty; as in a fairy tale, no unnecessary characters appear except as set dressing. And scenes typically involve only two or three people, as in a story from an older oral tradition, where reporting dialog is awkward. And all this despite Batten's generosity with evocative and pinpoint description: in one sentence describing an Eastern city, she moves from the watermelon and apricot sky to the heated dust of the streets to the fetid stink of the alleys. The novel is filled with breathtakingly skilled moments. Lalita and Finnian are besieged in an empty house by a flock of vampire-like Strigoi, but in the middle of the battle, one of the Strigoi speaks. The six or seven words he says bring the temperature in the room down to zero.

Having read the two previous books and knowing some of the characters, I was tempted by the novel's style to remain carefully detached from Lalita and Finnian, having had my heart broken on several previous occasions by Batten's notorious ability to lead even her most central and appealing characters into unforeseeable situations from which there is no escape. But in vain. Warmth and understanding and sadness grew with every page, as the characters souls were revealed in their selfishness, their sacrifices, and their acceptance of Fate.

Batten is also a master of the heart-in-your-throat ending. By the end of the story, Lalita and Finnian and all the well-loved characters from the earlier books (who turn up at the end) had involved me in their lives in a way I'd never expected. A series of beautifully plotted revelations, decisions, secrets and unforeseen turns had me eying the last ten pages with alarm, the novel speeding toward a cliff with vital knowledge still unrevealed. But Batten brings the story to a smooth stop with the front tires brushing the lip of the precipice and sending a single pebble over into the abyss. Fortunately, and unfortunately, everything ends as it should.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Great addition to The Chronicles of Eirie February 4, 2012

By G. Johnston

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

This is a great addition to The Chronicles of Eirie series; The Stumpwork Robe and The Last Stitch. Rather than leading on from the other two adventures which are chronological, this novel is almost a parallel drama, answering questions raised in the other volumes and deepening the understanding of the "world" of the fantasy novels.

In this one Lalita and Finnian move through a finely-described, extraordinary world. There are traces of the familiar, from different times and cultures which meet in this world. Djinns move about elements of renaissance Venice. This multiculturalism reminds me of the pre-renaissance, where Greek thought and learning returned to Europe via Arabic learning. In this way, the world of Eirie is a world of multicultural cross-pollination and consequently entirely familiar. But with the heavy mix of magic and "other" possibility, make it unfamiliar and exciting.

It is a credit to Batten's writing that these disparate elements are so easily and convincingly melded together to support what is a heart a great adventure story. Highly recommended read.

More About the Author

I was born in Australia and studied history and politics at the University of Tasmania. I've worked as a hotel cleaner, a cosmetician in a major department store, a bookseller but most properly as a journalist/researcher for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation where I met my husband, also a journalist.

We now farm in Tasmania, growing the superfine wool for which Australia is famous. I spent almost ten years as a coordinator for the cancer therapy program Look Good Feel Better and time as a walker for Riding for the Disabled and for the local Dogs' Home. I have two adult children, two dogs, too much garden and maybe too little time to write.

I write both historical fiction for which Gisborne: Book of Pawns received an Honourable Mention in the 2012 Golden Claddagh Writing Contest, and historical fantasy for which A Thousand Glass Flowers received a silver medallion in the 2012 Readers' Favorite Book Awards.

I'm what the pundits call a 'niche' writer which means that both the fantasies and the historical fiction don't conform to pre-conceived concepts of their genres.

What better way to entice readers than to offer you a chance to read novels that are unique!