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Crewel

Crewel

Gennifer Albin
2012
●●●●● A Definite Must read!
○○○○ Really good. You should read it!
○○○ It was okay, I finished it. Something was missing.
○○ Read if you’ve already read the cereal box, twice.
○ Time I’ll never get back. Probably didn’t finish it.


Wow!

Gennifer Albin is a master at world building. Weaving in fantasty, sci-fi, adventure, and romance she has created a masterpiece with Crewel (a term used for decorative embroidery).

The pages turned themselves as I raced to figure out who the good guys were, where the story was going, how the author would resolve the dilemmas, and who was going to be the romantic interest. Albin spectacularly describes the world of Arras and the threadlike elements that make up everything in it—including people. Spinsters are charged with the task of identifying the weaker threads and ripping them out—for the good of the threads around it.

Adelice, the heroine, is a spinster (spinsters sit at a loom and weave; they also don’t get married and have children). Adelice isn’t just a spinster, she is THE Spinster. You know, the one who has more capabilities and talent than the average spinster?

Well, the Arras has been waiting for her to show up for about 100 years and they’ll threaten—and do—anything to get her to submit to them and allow them to exploit her abilities. Yes, some of the usual formulas are present, but it would be a mistake to accuse Albin of being a formula writer.

These plots are popular because we like them: there are two possibilities for a romance; there is a woman with a fair amount of power who hates Adelice and wants her dead; there’s a bad man in charge of everything who takes a page out of the corporate-political-monster-self-centered-jerk-face play book and it’s all packaged in a brilliantly created world with many layers. There is so much depth to the storyline and the world that I enthusiastically gave it my full attention.

Of course it ended with a cliff hanger. My only regret is that I read this book the day it was released, which means I have to wait a year to before I can rip through book two.

Highly recommended for those of you who liked Under The Never Sky and Delirium.

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