Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Happy reading on a Sunday afternoon, November 11, 2001
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.
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Pleasant but inconsequential first novel, March 28, 2002
_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.
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Cute fantasy story, July 5, 2002
Rebecca Lickiss's debut novel has charm, wit, and an underlying cuteness, and near the end displays an unusual intensity and strength. It's not clear why many reviewers seem to expect this to be an earth-shattering fantasy, when that is clearly not what Lickiss is aiming for.Unpublished writer Piper Pied's grandmother has just died, and Piper finds that the house has been left to the first person to throw dirt on the coffin -- her. She settles down into her new sanctum, only to be disturbed when a decidedly attractive elf appears in her kitchen. Aelvarim turns out to be an old friend of Piper's grandmother. He then introduces her to the world of Fairy through one of the house's doors, where tiny sprites flit around and pull her hair, a woman-hating wizard growls, and a cheerful dwarf digs up "stuff" in a mine. But all is not lightness and air. Aelvarim is unswerving in his belief that Grandmother was murdered, and soon Piper begins to believe it as well. Upon learning that Fairy and its inhabitants can be altered by fiction from the human world, Piper begins the search for a book that was never finished -- and her grandmother's murderer. Lickiss seems to be aware that few elements of her book are truly new -- in fact, in places she spoofs the conventions of fantasy and magic. At one point, Malraux the dwarf explains a few things about the dark and high elves ("If you ask me, the elves over the water are nothing but a bunch of snobs"), and about the conventional mindset for a wizard. When Aelvarim describes how fiction alters Fairy, he ends it off by praising a certain person for his muscular, handsome physique: "Thank goodness for Tolkien." That and a joke about "feminine matrices" add an element of humor into the plot that help buoy it up. One of the biggest difficulties is that the cast of characters is quite small, and the number of Fairy denizens is even smaller. It makes the possibilities for the murderer quite limited; though Lickiss is clearly at home in small casts, in future books with a "murder mystery" theme she may want to expand the cast slightly. Hints are also dropped about the murderer throughout the plot, with the result that I could guess who it was relatively soon. (And I'm not very good at solving murder mysteries) On the other hand, it's refreshing to read a fantasy where the romance element doesn't become too overwhelming; there is nothing headier than a few intense kisses. Piper is a pretty good heroine; at times she seems a little too restrained around the Fairy inhabitants, but is a pretty normal young woman with no exceptional qualities. She is also an unpublished writer, which may endear her to aspiring writers. Aelvarim is a charming character, though I preferred the scenes where his alienness rather than attractiveness is emphasized. He has a childlike enthusiasm and naivete which shows up in such scenes as when he marvels at a shopping mall or tries to use Piper's toaster. Malraux the dwarf is a fun character, with a mischievous sense of humor; the pixies are not really too important to the plot. "Eccentric Circles" is a good first novel, and a good light book for those who like a sweet, often charming read.
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