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

MURDLE VOLUME 1 - G. T. Karber

Image
 I enjoy puzzles of many different varieties. I had not heard of 'Murdle' before this but essentially this is a combination of the game of Clue and a Sherlock Holmes micro story. With suspects, possible murder weapons, potential locations, and/or motives plus some very brief hints, readers are meant to combine the logic of what's know with deductive reasoning to identify the killer (or killers?) in 100 different mystery word puzzles. I will admit right off the bat that I did not do all 100.  I didn't even do half of these, but I did so some random sampling through all the categories (Elementary, Occult Medium, Hard Boiled, and Impossible). I did not get any correct in the Impossible category (of course not ... they were impossible!) and only one correct in the Hard Boiled (of five). The Elementary puzzles were, as expected, pretty easy and the Hard Boiled only a little bit more difficult. Each mini mystery comes with a grid printed in the book to help the reader-detecti
Read more

THE YOUNGER GODS - Michael R. Underwood

Image
 Jacob Greene is a child of cultists - extremists with a deep connection to powerful gods.  To stay in good favor and receive great powers from these gods Jacob's family (both biological family and cult group family) must occasion a sacrifice now then. Jacob doesn't seem to question this (it's how he's been raised, after all) until the time he brings his best friend home to be brutally sacrificed. Jacob believes that his friend is a willing participant, honored to be chosen, informed of what was about to take place by Jacob's father.   Of course nothing could be further from the truth and the friend does NOT go willingly. This shatters Jacob's belief and has him question his faith and he leaves his family and cult in order to think things through. But it's not easy to escape powerful gods, and despite being in the city of New York, all signs point to the fact that the gods know where he is and that something big is about to go down. Although the description
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 - wherein he acq
Read more