Review: Getting lost in bizarre names
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 01 16, 2014
We know very little about new author Kateryna Kei (the name itself is magically beautiful!) - her origins, her background - only that she loves Harry Potter and Irish dancing, chocolate, nature walks and writing songs and poems and fantasies. She apparently works as a translator and an interpreter, but the languages she speaks remain a mystery. Perhaps that is in her favor: her first novel, RAVEN BOY, claims to be the beginning of a series, and despite the problems with lack of an editorial eye to correct spelling and grammar and syntax, she seems to have a flare for fantasy young adult books.After a prologue as well as a preface that lay the drift for the fantasy world we are about to enter, Kei begins her Viking tale with a battle in which the Viking king konungr Torgeir is killed and the queen Turid must decide on his successor - the konungr's gentle brother rjan (who suffers convulsions under stress) or one of Turid's twin sons - Hrafn and Olaf, merely `twelve winters old'. Prophecy enters the scene, Hrafn is the chosen one, and in his battles and travels he encounters the strong willed, beautiful, and loving Anna whose mysterious includes preparation to become a witch (she can talk with animals, has the ability to open and close locked things at will, knows potions and spells) and it is here that the beginnings of a love affair begin.Though Kei provides and index of names at book's end the Norse and many other language names she has pinned on her characters take considerable patience to allow the eye to remain joined to the brain to follow the story. That seems to be a trait for these fantasy books (think Hobbit, Harry Potter, The Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings, etc), so for readers who love the genre the names should not provide a problem. A suggestion: list the cast of characters after the Prologue as a reference. This is a good start for a new novelist who seems to flow with the world of make believe very comfortably. Grady Harp, January 14