Friday, June 17, 2011

Review: Darkborn by Alison Sinclair

Book Description:

In the city of Minhorne, Darkborn and Lightborn live side by side, never meeting, divided by a powerful mages’ curse that makes daylight lethal to the Darkborn and darkness lethal to the Lightborn. They are divided, too, by their acceptance of magic and technology, their politics, their religion, and their views of the proper conduct of men and women.

An act of necessary succor brings Darkborn physician Balthasar Hearne to the deadly attention of agents of a new and unrecognized enemy of both Darkborn and Lightborn. His aristocratic wife, Telmaine, is forced to use magical abilities she has all her life concealed, to protect her husband and her children. And Ishmael di Studier, mage and outcast, who has spent his life defending his borders home from the marauding Shadowborn, now finds himself engaged against an even more dangerous enemy.

Review:

There are two different types of people in this work. Those born in the light and those born in the dark. They coexist as peacefully as they can in the city of Minhorne. Balthasar Hearne is a darkborn doctor who helps many people and shares his practice with a lightborn doctor. Everything is going smoothly for him until a high profile lady comes to his office and delivers twin babies that apper to be lightborn even though their mother is darkborn, and they are not from the man that she is supposed to marry, they are from a different lover. This causes a chain of events to unfold that lead Balthasar and his family into a set of unfortunate circumstances as someone is trying to get these babies and do harm to anyone who knows about them. Add in a separate group of people called the shadowborn, who do not want people to coexist, and lots of drama and action unfold. Can the darkborn people solve this mystery without getting themselves hurt and others too? While all of this is going on Telmaine, Balthasar’s wife has to reveal something that she has kept secret even from her husband. She has mange powers. These powers are frowned upon and she has hidden them her whole life. Can she tell people of her powers and not lose them, and can she use them without hurting others while trying to help?

This book had a really great adventurous tone to it and when I finally understood what was going on and was able to more understand the way of the darkborn people I thought it was a fun story. In the beginning I struggled to understand the language of the book, this language told how the darkborn people communicated with each other without the apparent use of eyes since they live in darkness. Light hurts them so they are never near light. I also thought the book offered a great twisting of relationships that made it interesting. Balthasar’s sister did not like his wife, Telmaine. Also, Telmaine’s family did not approve of her marrying beneath her in Balthasar. It was an interesting book to get into and there is another book in the series called, Lightborn, so the adventure must continue.

Click here to read an excerpt from chapter one. 

Book in this series:

Shadowborn



*Reviewed by Jenny O. for Bite Club
*As per the FCC rules I am required to tell you that I purchased this book and gave it to Jenny for review...so now you know.

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