Finalist

Assessment:

Plot: Oliver Webb comes to Farview to—not to live, and certainly not to find love with a charming jack-of-all-trades storyteller. How can Oliver, who carries his Greynox past as a dark burden on his shoulders, ever claim his legacy as one of the seafaring, sunlight-spirited Croftwell folk?

Prose/Style: Told in the best traditions of enchantment, Kim Fielding creates a world where keeping a couple of dragons in the stable to pull your carriage is an everyday affair, and it's only prudent to lay in some extra victuals so you can keep on friendly terms with the imps that live in the garden. But it's the sparkling, limpid magic of Fielding's writing that will draw her readers in – her gift of creating a sense of place and emotions so vividly real that readers raise their eyes from the page as if emerging from a dream.

Originality: Farview is storytelling of the highest order; from the very first page, any thought of disbelief is happily suspended as we joyfully plunge into Oliver and Felix's world. At times, the graphic descriptions of the sexual intimacy between the two strike an off note in this tale of enchantment; they are just a shade too realistic, and come perilously close to breaking the spell.

Character Development/Execution: It is delightful to see the romance that develops between Oliver and Felix treated with the same matter-of-factness as imps in the garden and dragons in the stables. Readers will wish they could live in Oliver and Felix's world.

Date Submitted: July 02, 2021