Sable stole the show; Tinsel stole my heart!

books:

	• Close Kin: Book II -- The Hollow Kingdom Trilogy Clare B. Dunkle Henry Holt and Co. (BYR), 2004 - 224 pages average customer review:based on 11 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

highly recommended

Kin coming close

Clare B. Dunkle returns to the world of "The Hollow Kingdom" with "Close Kin," a romantic adventure that stretches the boundaries of her invented world. Though this book is a bit too rushed, Dunkle's mix of humor and suspense carry the story smoothly as we find out a bit more about the mysterious elves.

Seylin the elf-goblin has been Emily's friend ever since she came to live with the goblins, and he has now fallen in love with her. When she absentmindedly rejects him, the brokenhearted Seylin decides to go find other elves. He manages to track down a camp of them -- but he finds that they have little in common.

The band leader is a brutal thug, the elves live in poverty, and the women are treated as scum... and all elf women die horribly in childbirth. Meanwhile, determined to find Seylin, Emily sets out accompanied by a crabby loremaster. Both she and Seylin discover the tragic joint past of the elves and goblins, and the terrible secret that is driving the elves toward extinction.

"Close Kin" takes a darker tone than its predecessor. Sure, "Hollow Kingdom" wasn't light and fluffy, but "Close Kin" explores the terrible aftermath of wars and misunderstandings. One scene even has an elf woman mutilating her face so no one will marry her. Yep, it gets that heavy, although Dunkle lightens up somewhat after the "kidnapping" of the elf brides.

It does rush past the romance a bit more quickly than you'd expect, and the elf women adjust to the feared goblins in way too little time. However, most of the plot moves at a fast clip, giving us plenty of looks at the grimy elf camp and the bloody history between the two races. There's certainly enough backstory to provide plenty of prequels, if Ms. Dunkle chose to write them.

Seylin gets plenty of dimension and angst to go along with his interesting elf-cat-goblin shapeshifting. Emily doesn't get much personal growth, sadly. But Dunkle also populates "Close Kin" with plenty of other interesting characters, such as a ditzy elf, a crabby priest, a little girl with her head full of fairy-tales, and a goblin street urchin (who is, incidentally, the most entertaining character in the whole book).

The final chapter of "Close Kin" seems to hint at the third book of the Hollow Kingdom Trilogy, and it sounds like the third venture into the kingdom of the goblins will be winner.

for more information click here

Fabulous read!

I thought this book was great, it's my favorite in the series actually. The characters are so well developed, they all deepen from the first book, the story line is interesting, and I loved how everything came together so smoothly. As I've said about the first book, I wouldn't recommended this series for younger readers or for sensitive people, but if you don't mind a bit of darkness (an elf girl slashes her face at the beginning of the book to make her unwanted to her fiance because all elven woman die in childbirth and there is some cruelty to woman in the book) I would highly recommended this series.

for more information click here

Still the same magic, if not the same level

While this works as a good sequel to "The Hollow Kingdom" I just don't feel this is quite the same level. Still, it is a brilliantly well-written fantasy that is worth reading. The adventures of various characters are continued while some loveable new ones are introduced. The story and history of the elves are given more careful attention--and it is pretty clear Dunkle has some issues with the entire elven race (which is not a bad thing in this elf-loving fantasy world of fiction). I love Dunkle's examination of that old myth of goblins carrying away girls--it may bug the ultra-feminists, but there is something darkly romantic about the whole thing, very Victorian.

for more information click here

Sable stole the show; Tinsel stole my heart!

Our favorite characters are back for a second story, but under considerably different circumstances, obviously. Emily and Seylin take the center stage this time, though we do catch a glimpse of Kate and Marak.
As to the plot...
Emily is too busy baby-sitting goblin children for her old friend Seylin, who's rather lonely anyway, on account of his elvish looks (which, though very handsome, are out of place in an underground kingdom where the citizens often have claws instead of hands). And when he finally proposes, Emily, being occupied by utterly mundane things like spills and caramels, completely misunderstands him. So Seylin naively decides that he'll never fit in with the goblins, and gets Marak's permission to search for the elves, who are thought to be long-dead. Seylin actually finds an elf camp,but things are not at all how he expected. The leader, Thorn, is nothing more than a bully, and is especially vicious to Sable, a woman who's strangely scarred.
Emily and Seylin were nice, but Sable and Tinsel really stole the show, as
mentioned above. I think of them as the main characters, though the book
is supposed to be about the former pair.

Close Kin measures up to The Hollow Kingdom in every way; the only fault I
can find with it is that it goes by too quickly!

for more information click here

nearly as good as the first

American buyers, DO NOT expect to find this book in any of our stores. second hand, or brand name. But do buy it! I've read hundreds of books, played many video games, watched a lot of movies and Dunkle sky rocketed to the top 10 in my list of storytellers.

Close Kin was very good. I originally thought it would be heavily following Seylin and Emily and I didn't know what to expect. But this time Dunkle gave us several characters to love and hate while still weaving an understanable story.

I've read many books with complicated storylines that dance all over the place, and Dunkle's trilogy found a place in my heart because they're so simple. She doesn't need a thousand plot twists and such to weave her tales. Great books to just relax with.

for more information click here

reviews: page 1, 2, 3

The goblin King's face lit up with amusement. "Seylin was proposing marriage to you," he cried, "and you wanted him to change into a cat?"

A thrilling and magical sequel to The Hollow Kingdom

For years Emily has been living happily in the underground goblin kingdom. Now she is old enough to marry, but when her childhood friend Seylin proposes, she doesn't even pay attention.

Devastated, Seylin leaves the kingdom to find his own people: the elves. Emily sets out in search of him. But they accidentally awaken hatreds and prejudices that have slumbered for hundreds of years, and soon two worlds are brought onto a dangerous collision course.

Clare B. Dunkle once again draws readers deep into the magical realm that Newbery-winning author Lloyd Alexander calls "as persuasive as it is remarkable."

for more information click here

hot