Review: Karen Healey, Guardian of the Dead
Apr. 6th, 2010 02:43 pmKaren Healey's brand new shiny novel Guardian of the Dead is the 29th book that I have read this year, and the first I have felt compelled to post about. This may be because I read a very early draft of this novel and because I think ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
karenhealey is aces... but I don't think that's it. I think it's because this is a wonderful book that caters pitch-perfectly to all of my favourite things - but will also be loved by people whose reasons for loving this novel aren't quite so narrow.
Guardian of the Dead (Allen & Unwin, 2010; Little, Brown have it in the States) is a YA novel. It is urban fantasy. And it is set emphatically in New Zealand - in parts of New Zealand, as it happens, which I know very well, as well as in some parts I don't. And it draws on New Zealand and Māori mythology. These things all make it a bullet-proof book for me - in fact, when I was asked recently what my dream book would be to publish, I said 'Oh, Allen & Unwin are already doing it. It's my friend Karen's book.'
This is not a book that apologetically borrows from Western fairies and fantasy traditions (although it does draw from Western myth). It is not set in Europe, or an alternative Europe. It is not set in an alternative New Zealand that just so happens not to have any Māori in it. This is a book that slots right into a small box in my head hitherto containing only Gaelyn Gordon's Stonelight and Mindfire, and the collected works of Margaret Mahy - fantasy that is steeped in New Zealandness, fantasy that could not have been written anywhere else, with a modern sensibility and terrifically drawn women and girls.
Under the cut is my second-favourite passage in the book. It comes relatively late in the piece, right at the beginning of part two, and therefore might be considered to be spoilerific. (My favourite passage is DEFINITELY spoilery and really you need to have read the whole book to get it.) At any rate. ( Read more... )
So yeah, I think that's pretty fabulous. I urge you to read this book. Wellingtonians, I know it's at Whitcoulls Lambton Quay and the Children's Bookshop, not sure about Unity &c.
karenhealey is aces... but I don't think that's it. I think it's because this is a wonderful book that caters pitch-perfectly to all of my favourite things - but will also be loved by people whose reasons for loving this novel aren't quite so narrow.Guardian of the Dead (Allen & Unwin, 2010; Little, Brown have it in the States) is a YA novel. It is urban fantasy. And it is set emphatically in New Zealand - in parts of New Zealand, as it happens, which I know very well, as well as in some parts I don't. And it draws on New Zealand and Māori mythology. These things all make it a bullet-proof book for me - in fact, when I was asked recently what my dream book would be to publish, I said 'Oh, Allen & Unwin are already doing it. It's my friend Karen's book.'
This is not a book that apologetically borrows from Western fairies and fantasy traditions (although it does draw from Western myth). It is not set in Europe, or an alternative Europe. It is not set in an alternative New Zealand that just so happens not to have any Māori in it. This is a book that slots right into a small box in my head hitherto containing only Gaelyn Gordon's Stonelight and Mindfire, and the collected works of Margaret Mahy - fantasy that is steeped in New Zealandness, fantasy that could not have been written anywhere else, with a modern sensibility and terrifically drawn women and girls.
Under the cut is my second-favourite passage in the book. It comes relatively late in the piece, right at the beginning of part two, and therefore might be considered to be spoilerific. (My favourite passage is DEFINITELY spoilery and really you need to have read the whole book to get it.) At any rate. ( Read more... )
So yeah, I think that's pretty fabulous. I urge you to read this book. Wellingtonians, I know it's at Whitcoulls Lambton Quay and the Children's Bookshop, not sure about Unity &c.
