2024 Young Adult Winner of the Indie Author Project annual contest.
A princess with a secret. An ancient evil rising. A kingdom caught in the balance.
Alyen, crown princess of Dúramair, has trained her whole life to be queen. She’s kept her faerie Sight a secret, trusting that the Keeper of Scales will find an apprentice soon—for surely one other candidate can be found. But when news comes from the north of dark magic returning to Dúramair, Alyen is forced to make the hardest decision of her life. A decision that could determine the fate of her kingdom.
Soon Alyen and her friends find that they are the last hope for Dúramair’s victory in a looming war. Forced to choose between love and duty, Alyen struggles to master her growing powers, knowing that if she fails, she risks destroying everything and everyone she loves.
Assessment:
Plot/Idea: The plot of Keeper of Scales is mostly a familiar one, but executed with a confidence and verve that should have no problems hooking in readers with its venerable twists and turns.
Prose: Mollova weaves her fantasy world with a deft, accessible prose, verbose enough to establish her vision, yet light enough that the reader's mind might hone the final image. The few shortcomings arise in occasional bouts of expositive dialogue that override its otherwise organic qualities, and a tendency toward anachronistic descriptors that serve to modernize the otherwise medieval fantasy setting.
Originality: Readers looking for some new take on the trappings and trimmings of the fantasy genre will find little to appease them here; Keeper of Scales lives and dies on the tenets of its forebearers, however well-carved its particular path may be.
Character Development/Execution: Like its predecessors and contemporaries, Keeper of Scales boasts an expansive cast - yet, while some stories buckle under the weight or feel padded with empty names, Mollova manages the feat of peopling her story with motivated characters that earn their place in the text. And even though they all walk well-trod paths, they are paths nonetheless laid out with thought and care; paths that genre fans should thoroughly enjoy walking.
Date Submitted: August 03, 2022
Anne has truly written an epic YA Fantasy for the ages ... that has heartbreak, love, joy and danger weaved through every page. I honestly cannot get enough of this world, and am so happy Keeper of Scales is only the first book in a series.
