Book Review: Moth and Spark by Anne Leonard

The blurb as seen on Goodreads:

Release Date: February 20, 2014
Publisher: Viking Adult
368 Pages

A prince with a quest. A commoner with mysterious powers. And dragons that demand to be freed—at any cost.

Prince Corin has been chosen to free the dragons from their bondage to the Empire, but dragons aren’t big on directions. They have given him some of their power, but none of their knowledge. No one, not the dragons nor their riders, is even sure what keeps the dragons in the Empire’s control. 

Tam, sensible daughter of a well-respected doctor, had no idea before she arrived in the capital that she is a Seer, gifted with visions. When the two run into each other (quite literally) in the library, sparks fly and Corin impulsively asks Tam to dinner. But it’s not all happily ever after. Never mind that the prince isn’t allowed to marry a commoner: war is coming to Caithen. 

Torn between Corin’s quest to free the dragons and his duty to his country, the lovers must both figure out how to master their powers in order to save Caithen. With a little help from a village of secret wizards and a rogue dragonrider, they just might pull it off.

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I hadn't heard anything about Moth and Spark before being contacted by the publisher, but after reading the summary, it was impossible not to be intrigued. Who doesn't love a great fantasy with romance and dragons? Plus, the cover? Intense and eye-catching. I was immediately on board with reading it. It's a good thing, too, because this was a fantastic book.

Tam is the doctor of a highly respected doctor. She has no title, but when invited by her sister-in-law to the royal court, Tam quickly catches the eye of the crowned prince of Caithen. Corin is drawn by the beauty and strength with which Tam presents herself. They quickly get caught up in their affair, knowing their romance will lead them nowhere as a commoner cannot marry a prince. Their budding love is soon threatened by war as their kingdom is betrayed by another. To survive, and save their kingdom, Tam and Corin, with the help of their most trusted friends, must find their hidden talents, free the dragons and keep their beloved kingdom from the hands of a cruel ruler.

I am a romance buff. Always have been, and most likely, always will be. Moth and Spark is very much a romance. The relationship between Tam and Corin is always in the foreground. We watch their love bloom as they battle to save their kingdom. There is a bit of insta-love, but I think it was handled well by the author, Anne Leonard. I wasn't bothered by how quickly their relationship moved. 

The love between the two main characters was not the only important relationship in this story. Family played a large role as well. The way Tam described her family showed an obvious adoration, and the reader will witness firsthand how precious Corin's family is to him. It is not often that I have read of such great familial bonds in fantasy novels as I did in Moth and Spark. That was a breath of fresh air. I loved reading their interactions, and banter. Their additions, and the additions of the other minor characters, were fantastic. 

The writing is gorgeous. Descriptive and elegant, Leonard has produced a story that I won't soon forget. Her readers will be immediately captivated by the beautiful prose and well-developed plot. This book moves pretty slowly at first, but it doesn't take long for the action and adventure to begin. Personally, I wasn't bothered by the pace. In fact, I thought it fit the plot and the fantasy of the story extremely well. It was not too fast, nor too slow. Moth and Spark really kept my attention, and had me so involved that it was nearly impossible for me to put it down. 

Moth and Spark is highly enjoyable. It has all of the elements of a good fantasy novel and a heavy dose of romance. I would definitely recommend it to fans of Fantasy Lite. It's full of mystery, adventure and a royal quest to save the world as these citizens know it! I loved it, and am very much looking forward to Leonard's next novel!

Guest Post from Anne Leonard, Author of MOTH AND SPARK

I am very happy to welcome Anne Leonard to Book Jems today to promote her fantasy debut, MOTH AND SPARK! She joins us with a wonderful guest post about the importance of patience when reading and writing!

MOTH AND SPARK by Anne Leonard

The blurb as seen on Goodreads:

Release Date: February 20, 2014

Publisher: Viking Adult

384 Pages

A prince with a quest. A commoner with mysterious powers. And dragons that demand to be freed—at any cost.

Prince Corin has been chosen to free the dragons from their bondage to the Empire, but dragons aren’t big on directions. They have given him some of their power, but none of their knowledge. No one, not the dragons nor their riders, is even sure what keeps the dragons in the Empire’s control. 

Tam, sensible daughter of a well-respected doctor, had no idea before she arrived in the capital that she is a Seer, gifted with visions. When the two run into each other (quite literally) in the library, sparks fly and Corin impulsively asks Tam to dinner. But it’s not all happily ever after. Never mind that the prince isn’t allowed to marry a commoner: war is coming to Caithen. 

Torn between Corin’s quest to free the dragons and his duty to his country, the lovers must both figure out how to master their powers in order to save Caithen. With a little help from a village of secret wizards and a rogue dragonrider, they just might pull it off.

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Goodreads.Amazon.Barnes & Noble

Patience

For this guest blog post, I thought I would do something a little different and talk about a readerly and writerly virtue: patience. In daily life, patience is something that I need to practice more and which seems increasingly hard to do in the face of the flood of information around me. Wait until Wednesday for my UPS package? OK, sure, but I’m going to watch the tracking updates in case it comes early.  Irritated with the point someone is making? I’ll just look at something else on my phone. We’re in a culture which continues to increase in speed, and the more one expects something to come soon, the harder it is to be patient. 

One of the comments I’ve seen from early readers of Moth and Spark is that it’s a bit slow at first. My first reaction was “What? There are a dozen dead bodies by the end of the first chapter!” But I do write with a slower, more deliberate pace than many writers. Much of this pacing probably comes from reading nineteenth century novels and from an academic background which values consideration and devalues hastiness.

But since I started thinking about this, I’ve realized that this is also a preference of mine. I’ve read several books recently that rushed by with the protagonist in one danger after another. It seems like the first chapter can’t end without a death, a chase, a knife fight, or so on, and the second chapter has to pick up immediately. Then, after that first frantic breath, it slows down a little.

As a reader, I’m finding myself increasingly dissatisfied with this. Books that start out fast and continue fast and just zip along in the reading leave me feeling unsatisfied at the end. I finish the book, and it’s like coming down from a blood sugar rush. It’s as though I’ve gobbled a package of chocolate chips instead of eating a truffle one small bite at a time, letting the chocolate melt, savoring the tastes. (As an aside, characters who rush headline from one adventure to another can start looking pretty stupid for not thinking through things. And for me, once the protagonist is stupid, the game is over.)

For me, part of the pleasure of reading is the immersion. I don’t want to rush back into my own world. I want to spend some time somewhere else, to linger in this new place where I don’t know what will happen next. I want to explore. Of course I want events and changes in my story as much as anyone else, but I’d rather ease into them than merge onto the freeway at 80 miles an hour on page 5. When I drive fast, I don’t see anything except what’s immediately around me.

It’s really easy for readers to get impatient. Whether it’s anticipating the behaviors of the characters and wanting them to get on with it, flipping to the next chapter to see if the story stops being stalled, or harassing George RR Martin for the next installment of Game of Thrones, readers often lose patience pretty quickly. I do this too. I’m especially aware of that tendency in myself when I pick up a big fat slow book that takes a while to unfold. But as a reader, I am trying to practice patience and take the book on its own terms.

As a writer, I also need to practice patience. Mostly this is patience with my writing process: patience to wait when the well runs dry, patience to think through something before writing a lot of words that will later be cut, patience to finish a scene fully instead of rushing on to the next one. But it’s also patience with my own story. I need to have the patience to let the story take me where it wants to go.

I’m not talking here about plot ideas. I’m fully capable of letting lots of plot ideas take over and ending up with a knot that I can’t untangle. I need to have less patience with some of those. I’m talking about the “aboutness” of the story. It has its currents, and when I try to alter the flow, bad things happen. To continue with the watery metaphors, I get beached or capsized, there’s a flood, or I cause a beautiful waterfall further downstream to dry up. Then I arrive where the waterfall should be, wonder what the hell happened to it, and have to go back to knock down the dam.

I get to choose how to tell the story. But I don’t always get to choose the story that’s being told. Just as I need to allow the story to be told on its own terms when I’m reading, I need to allow it its own terms when I’m writing.

Do you ever lose your patience when reading, or writing?

Thank you to Anne for the lovely, thoughtful post! And thank you to Chris and the other kind people at Viking/Penguin for offering the opportunity to host Anne today!