THE KEEPER'S SIX - Kate Elliott


 Esther is a mother and grandmother. Her son has been kidnapped and she's headed to The Beyond - an alien landscape between worlds. Time and space react differently here. The Beyond would be difficult enough to traverse but Esther and her Hex (think 'traveling D&D party of wizards') have been banned from The Beyond the the ruling council, known as The Concilium.

But Esther hears the cries of her son, calling out for help, and she'll do anything, go anywhere, face off against anyone, to rescue him.

The Concilium isn't the only danger in The Beyond. Dragonlords and Darkness may defeat them before they can rescue Esther's son. Most troubling though is an old crime come back to haunt her - the reason she's been banned from the region in the first place.

This is about as average a scifi/fantasy read as you can get. I thought we might get a fast-paced, rollicking fantasy given its brevity (this book is under 200 pages) but I never felt as though I was involved. The characters were strangers to me through the entire book and the quest, while understandable (a mother who will do anything for her child) just wasn't exciting.

There's a lot of time spent world-building, which was moderately fun, though a 'world in between' is a pretty old scifi trope. The world building means that we get a lot of information dumped on us early (there isn't time to let it come to us slowly) which may be why the characters didn't mean much to me - I was too busy getting the low-down on the space instead of the people.

This did nothing to make me want to read any more adventures with Esther and her Hex nor any more from Kate Elliott, though I wouldn't turn such a book away if a friend gave one to me.

Looking for a good book? The Keeper's Six by Kate Elliott is a very average scifi/fantasy that uses common tropes and very unremarkable characters.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

2-1/2 stars

* * * * * * *

The Keeper's Six

author: Kate Elliott

publisher: Tordotcom

ISBN: 9781250769077

hardcover, 197 pages

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

VINYL RESTING PLACE - Olivia Blacke

Image
 Juni Jessup and her two sister, Tansy and Maggie, have gone into business together in their hometown of Cedar River, Texas, opening a combination record store and coffee shop. Vinyl LPs are making a comeback after all, despite critics thinking the medium was dead.  But speaking of 'dead' ... finding a dead body in the supply closet just as they are looking to have a grand opening is not part of the plan.  Juni's life gets more complicated when their uncle, Calvin, already a suspect in the murder, disappears. And the police officer leading the investigation is Juni's EX-boyfriend (who passive-aggressively keeps putting himself back into her life). Convinced that her uncle would never murder anyone, Juni sets out to prove his innocence - which isn't easy since he's making himself look guilty - because Calvin is family and family is EVERYthing to Juni. As readers of my blog know, I'm not a big fan of most cozy mysteries, but the setting caught my eye and my in...
Read more

THE WALLED CITY - Ryan Graudin

Image
  Jin and her sister, Mei Yee, were taken and sold and then sent to the lawless Walled City to serve as prostitutes or slaves to anyone willing to pay. Jin managed to escape her captivity, but not the Walled City and she now lurks about, disguised as a boy and is trying to track down the brothel where her sister is still captive. Jin will work odd delivery jobs to earn a small bit of money and hopefully have a legitimate means of coming in contact with her sister's captors.  This is how she meets up with Dai, a mysterious boy who has somehow managed to avoid running with any of the gangs in the city but he seems to have his own unusual connections, which Jon could desperately use if she has any hope of finding Mei Yee. But Dai has his own desperate needs.  The story is told from the different perspectives of each character and we do bounce around quite a bit as the chapters are generally short. This never bothered me, which is slightly unusual as often I find this techni...
Read more

THE RAVEN THIEF - Gigi Pandian

Image
 With Tempest Raj now a member of the company, Secret Staircase Construction (a company who, as their title suggests, builds mystery-themed, secret rooms inside homes) has finished their first job. Their client now wants to celebrate to kick off her new beginning - new home and new life now that she's divorced from her cheating ex-husband, famous mystery author Corbin Colt. First up, a mock séance to remove any trace of Corbin from the property, led by Tempest's friend, Sanjay.   But during that séance, while all those gathered sat in a dark room holding hands, Corbin's dead body crashes the party, falling across the table in front of everyone. There were eight people in the room, and they were all holding hands, but all the evidence points to one of them being the murderer.  Suspicions point to Ash, Tempest's grandfather, because he was the only one with Corbin's blood on him. Of course, as a doctor, he was also the only one who checked on the body - ...
Read more