Review: Price of a Thousand Blessings by Ginn Hale (Book One)
Cymin’s final tournament representing the East Deity for Lux Temple promises to be thrilling and bittersweet. After it’s done, all his skill and power must feed a Storm Tower to protect the world from fei’lux storms. But before his conscription, he intends to put on a dazzling show and enjoy his last glorious outing.
The streets are thronged with cheering crowds, and the grand procession shimmers with spells. Film stars and government ministers claim the best seats in the stands. And most exciting of all, the legendary Wraiths of Saigrath promise to attend this Spring Exhibition after centuries of absence from the world.
Cymin can’t wait to meet them.But when disaster strikes the celebrations, Cymin risks his own life and destroys a priceless artifact to prevent a massacre. His action not only plunge him into the battle between foreign provocateurs and his own nation’s spies, but captures the attention of the mythical Wraiths–one of whom has been searching for him in secret for hundreds of years.
Review:
Dear Ginn Hale,
I was really happy and excited to see an announcement of the new book from you and with such a gorgeous cover no less. I then delayed reading it a little bit because a second volume was announced to be published just a month later. I cannot remember when the blurb of a book made me so excited for quite some time actually. I mean I knew that the book would have at least some romantic story line obviously, but this writer’s books usually contain a lot more than just a romantic storyline and I just had no idea where this blurb would lead me. I have to say that in some ways I was really surprised. I really enjoyed this book, and at the same time at least some parts of the story exhausted me. Basically I think a comparison can be drawn here (not with the story itself but strictly with the writing style) with the series “Grandmaster of a Demonic cultivation”. In fact when our reading group was doing a buddy read of this book I seriously wondered if “Grandmaster” was one of the inspiration sources.
The book moves slowly and when I say slow I mean *painfully slow* in places. This writer usually builds a great world in her books and this was no exception for me. The descriptions of magic alone made me stop and savor them, it was so beautifully done and I could see how much care and work was put in the worlds described in this story.
“Cymin held the flow of fei’lux steady as he swung the broom handle around. The instant he closed the circle, the smoky haze coalesced into dozens of large translucent lotus blossoms. They hung in the air, shimmering for a moment before bursting apart in a shower of fragrant raindrops. Cymin grinned as the perfumed water pelted his bare chest and shoulders and dribbled down his body. Yes! Did it!”
And this paragraph is by far not the most lush one and there were many of them
I loved it and at the same time I felt that at times (let me emphasize – at times, not all the time), I felt that the world was overly described. At times I wished the story would moved faster, just a little bit, but because I loved the narrator so much and because the writer made sure I was utterly confused and wanted to know the answer to the puzzles she was setting up, I kept reading and reading till I finally finished.
The Grandmaster series proved to be too much for me, but because I hope that I will be rewarded for staying with the first volume, I am already reading book two for me (and it does move somewhat faster :)). Maybe the chess figures were set up here and we won’t need to spend so much time describing what the characters saw and ate, etc etc?
So, I probably need to add at least a little more to the set up described in the blurb. The story starts (or at least reader is supposed to think that the story starts there) in the “modern Chyrese Republic” in the year 1919. Whether the Chyrese republic is supposed to made the reader think about ancient China, I will leave it up to the reader to decide. I thought there was definitely at least a homage paid there, based on the some descriptions, but it is definitely a unique fantastic world with so many interesting magical things happening and I don’t think we know nearly all of it after the first book ends. Cymin and his sister Yinni were both brought up as tuteli in the Lux temple. I thought they were basically brought up as monks of the sorts that were taught magical arts and they are supposed to participate in the Magical Arts exhibition and students from other schools come to participate, too.
Wraiths of the country Saigrath also come to observe and participate and they bring plenty of secrets with them. Actually every character appearing on the pages so far seemed to have the secret of their own which they barely started sharing in volume two :-). Wraiths also would offer for some of the Mage Students from other schools to come and the Wraiths will teach them in their country.
Cymin and Yinni end up coming along for the trip even if they do not come as students exactly and the adventure begins. A really slow moving adventure till the last two or three chapters in the first volume, but the world was so interesting and Cymin was such an engaging narrator, kind and gentle, who teased himself a lot and who has plenty of his own discoveries to make about who he is and who he was.
Please beware that book three is not out yet, but yes, I checked that the ending of book two does not have a cliffhanger at least. This is also just one huge story split up in several books. Volume two literally starts from chapter twenty two.
Grade: A
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