Book Three of The Shamer Chronicles, The Serpent Gift is translated from the Danish, by the author Lene Kaaberbol. I was impressed with the first two, The Shamer's Daughter and The Shamer's Signet but this one let me down a little. It was very good in the end, but it could have done quite nicely with about 75 - 100 pages cut out of it. It's a children's book that rings in at 377 pages, and while I've got nothing against long books, I generally prefer it when the plot doesn't strand me in a predictable and pointless location for a third of the book. It gave her time for some character development, but I seriously doubt that it couldn't have been accomplished elsewhere in the novel. But hey, who cares what I think? Hell, right now, I barely care. Not to let my negative attitute seep into my always chipper blog or anything. Clearly, I know nothing, as Booklist gave it a starred review. Of course, in their plot description they completely skip over the action in the section I'd have cut, so perhaps I'm not all that out of line...
Either way, in this third installment we find Dina still without control of her Shamer powers, but they have happily settled into a quite life. Until, (where would we be without an 'until'?) Dina catches the eye of a mysterious man in the market who begins to stalk the family with a surprising secret (well, surprising if you're like, 10).
With the exception of that which I have already noted, the book was still very good. I might even read the 4th, The Shamer's War sometime after it comes out later this month.
Though I must admit, it drives me crazy that although these have to be translated from the DANISH, we can get these BEFORE we can get more of Australia's Ranger's Apprentice, and those are already in English. It's Flanagan's novels that have me on the edge of my seat, not so much Kaaberbol. 10+
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