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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Elfland is a faerie tale for adults, a true faerie tale in that the book deals with a race of beings called Aetherials, who were what the humans thought were faeries; angels, vampires or demons. The mythology is great, but it is also an all too human tale of love, loss, fear and courage.
I can't condense the plot too much; it is too epic to even try, and this is only one of the first books in this new series. The story mainly concerns two families, the Foxes and the Wilders who live on earth but are Aetherial in nature and desire. Lawrence Wilder is the Gatekeeper; mad as a hatter living in the fortress-like house of Stonegate. The Aetherials can move between worlds on the night of the Summer Stars when the Gatekeeper opens the portal between the worlds; but one night he refuses to do so, spouting out about a great danger that awaits if he even tries. But is he just delusional or is there really something out to get them?
This book was a joy to read. I'm not normally a fan of urban fantasy, but for some reason this one drew me in and I felt like I was in the book with the characters and all the strange and wondrous places they visited. The romance flowed with the story, it didn't just suddenly apppear out of nowhere as if the author just wanted to put the romance in. The romance was part of it from the beginning. The book draws you in and by the end you feel you too have gone on a strange quest and come out relatively unscathed.
A keeper.
I can't condense the plot too much; it is too epic to even try, and this is only one of the first books in this new series. The story mainly concerns two families, the Foxes and the Wilders who live on earth but are Aetherial in nature and desire. Lawrence Wilder is the Gatekeeper; mad as a hatter living in the fortress-like house of Stonegate. The Aetherials can move between worlds on the night of the Summer Stars when the Gatekeeper opens the portal between the worlds; but one night he refuses to do so, spouting out about a great danger that awaits if he even tries. But is he just delusional or is there really something out to get them?
This book was a joy to read. I'm not normally a fan of urban fantasy, but for some reason this one drew me in and I felt like I was in the book with the characters and all the strange and wondrous places they visited. The romance flowed with the story, it didn't just suddenly apppear out of nowhere as if the author just wanted to put the romance in. The romance was part of it from the beginning. The book draws you in and by the end you feel you too have gone on a strange quest and come out relatively unscathed.
A keeper.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Mass Market Paperback
Elfland centres around the community of Aetherials, members of a fairy race who have chosen to live in the human world, indistinguishable from regular mortals. Once every seven years, Lawrence Wilder throws open the Gates between the worlds to allow access to the fairy realm, known as the Spiral. However, when the book opens Lawrence refuses to open the Gates and instead seals all entrances to the Spiral in order to keep the Aetherials safe from a threat which he will not name. Some continue with their lives, becoming increasingly human, while others resent Lawrence's decision and try to find ways to force his hand. Meanwhile the Aetheiral children grow up without ever having visited their magical homeland and both Rosie Fox and her brother Matthew marry humans. But Rosie is continually tempted by a life outside of her mundane, human existence, epitomised in the form of tempting bad boy Sam Wilder. Like the problem of the gates, this cannot be ignored and soon things reach boiling point.
I'm sure there are a great many people out there who love this book, but personally I found it very frustrating. What this book reveals about the Aetherials and the world inside the Spiral as fascinating, but I felt that the fact that the characters were part of a semi-immortal race of fairies was irrelevant for about 70% of the plot which instead focused around normal, mundane things like family relationships and whether the heroine will choose her safe, ordinary husband or the attractive bad boy that she seems unable to resist (hmmmm, I wonder how that will work out. No prizes for guessing). At times it seemed that the only special thing about being Aetherial is that it leads to lots of really great sex. Which is fine, but I wanted to read about how the Aetherials live and the problems of the gate between the two worlds being closed and then cracked open again, not about how much better sex is for them.
Because I picked this book up expecting a fantasy novel, I found the lack of focus on this aspect of the novel to be incredibly irritating. I couldn't get to like any of the characters, not least because a lot of them were cliche-riddled, but also because I was increasingly annoyed at their interactions distracting from what should have been the main plot concerning the cracking open of the gates. I found myself racing through the relationship stuff in order to get to the main meat of the fantasy plot, only to discover that it never really came. This is a shame, because the little that was shown of the Spiral was fascinating. The Aetherial world and mythology sounds really interesting and I only wish that there had been more of it and that there had been more time given over to developing it.
Elfland is book one of the Aetherial Tales series, of which Warrington has written one more book at present. As her interests and mine don't really correspond (I like a bit of romance with my fantasy, not the other way around) I doubt I'll be continuing with the series. It would however be a really great book for someone who typically reads romance novels and would like to try out a new genre
I'm sure there are a great many people out there who love this book, but personally I found it very frustrating. What this book reveals about the Aetherials and the world inside the Spiral as fascinating, but I felt that the fact that the characters were part of a semi-immortal race of fairies was irrelevant for about 70% of the plot which instead focused around normal, mundane things like family relationships and whether the heroine will choose her safe, ordinary husband or the attractive bad boy that she seems unable to resist (hmmmm, I wonder how that will work out. No prizes for guessing). At times it seemed that the only special thing about being Aetherial is that it leads to lots of really great sex. Which is fine, but I wanted to read about how the Aetherials live and the problems of the gate between the two worlds being closed and then cracked open again, not about how much better sex is for them.
Because I picked this book up expecting a fantasy novel, I found the lack of focus on this aspect of the novel to be incredibly irritating. I couldn't get to like any of the characters, not least because a lot of them were cliche-riddled, but also because I was increasingly annoyed at their interactions distracting from what should have been the main plot concerning the cracking open of the gates. I found myself racing through the relationship stuff in order to get to the main meat of the fantasy plot, only to discover that it never really came. This is a shame, because the little that was shown of the Spiral was fascinating. The Aetherial world and mythology sounds really interesting and I only wish that there had been more of it and that there had been more time given over to developing it.
Elfland is book one of the Aetherial Tales series, of which Warrington has written one more book at present. As her interests and mine don't really correspond (I like a bit of romance with my fantasy, not the other way around) I doubt I'll be continuing with the series. It would however be a really great book for someone who typically reads romance novels and would like to try out a new genre
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Mass Market Paperback
Elfland (Tor Fantasy)
My low rating of this book pains me since my expectations were so high, given that I have been a fan of Freda Warrington for years. The concept promised so much and I felt that Freda was well positioned, given her wondrous Blackbird fantasy series as well as other fantasy tales, to deliver something truly magical. For all that `Elfland' is set in a land of a fae race of beings, there is little magic in it. I was ready to be taken into a world ruled by old magic, old belief systems, where spirits such as elves, faeries and elementals play a very real part in people's lives and fortunes. The story is set in the modern day where humans live alongside a fae race, but only on occasion do we see glimpses of the fairy world. The concentration on the mundane details of human daily life - which should only punctuate the magical, fairy world - overtakes it, and renders the sudden switches to `Elfland' rather unbelievable and slightly ridiculous.
Perhaps there is also an over reliance on the romantic aspect of the story, as other reviewers have suggested. However I am more than happy with romance in my fantasy, so was propelled along by this, only to be disappointed by the unreality of situations. Freda is normally fantastic at building characters you can understand and love, however I felt she didn't do justice to her characters in this book and many were one-dimensional and often predictable. She made you love the character of Jon - the beautiful, long-haired, poetic Wilder son - but his troubled story is never properly resolved which made me very annoyed and frustrated. I did love the character of Sam, but couldn't help but see very obvious similarities with a certain character in Buffy...he both looked and talked exactly like Spike (probably why I liked him, but still...!). I couldn't believe in the main character, Rosie, at all.
Another major irritation was where the drama of a situation is heavily built up, you're intrigued to know what's going to happen next... only to find that the story suddenly stops and skips several months or years!
Overall I got the impression that Freda wanted to do too much with this book, and ended up spreading herself too thinly. Either it should have been a saga about the lives of the Wilders; or an exploration of elves, fairies and old magic; or a modern day romance. In trying to be too much it didn't succeed on any of these levels for me.
My low rating of this book pains me since my expectations were so high, given that I have been a fan of Freda Warrington for years. The concept promised so much and I felt that Freda was well positioned, given her wondrous Blackbird fantasy series as well as other fantasy tales, to deliver something truly magical. For all that `Elfland' is set in a land of a fae race of beings, there is little magic in it. I was ready to be taken into a world ruled by old magic, old belief systems, where spirits such as elves, faeries and elementals play a very real part in people's lives and fortunes. The story is set in the modern day where humans live alongside a fae race, but only on occasion do we see glimpses of the fairy world. The concentration on the mundane details of human daily life - which should only punctuate the magical, fairy world - overtakes it, and renders the sudden switches to `Elfland' rather unbelievable and slightly ridiculous.
Perhaps there is also an over reliance on the romantic aspect of the story, as other reviewers have suggested. However I am more than happy with romance in my fantasy, so was propelled along by this, only to be disappointed by the unreality of situations. Freda is normally fantastic at building characters you can understand and love, however I felt she didn't do justice to her characters in this book and many were one-dimensional and often predictable. She made you love the character of Jon - the beautiful, long-haired, poetic Wilder son - but his troubled story is never properly resolved which made me very annoyed and frustrated. I did love the character of Sam, but couldn't help but see very obvious similarities with a certain character in Buffy...he both looked and talked exactly like Spike (probably why I liked him, but still...!). I couldn't believe in the main character, Rosie, at all.
Another major irritation was where the drama of a situation is heavily built up, you're intrigued to know what's going to happen next... only to find that the story suddenly stops and skips several months or years!
Overall I got the impression that Freda wanted to do too much with this book, and ended up spreading herself too thinly. Either it should have been a saga about the lives of the Wilders; or an exploration of elves, fairies and old magic; or a modern day romance. In trying to be too much it didn't succeed on any of these levels for me.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Not as I expected
I am a huge fan of both fantasy and paranormal romance, and having read Warringtons Blackbird series 20 years ago as a teenager, this new book seemed to cover both bases. Read more
Published 20 months ago by Decca
Gorgeous fantasy
Elfland by Freda Warrington is a gorgeous, intricate fantasy. I couldn't put it down. Beautiful!
Published on 9 Feb 2010 by Mary Beth Bass
Elfland
I loved this book. At nearly 67 years of age, I could have wept when I finished it. I tried to make it last as long as I could, but eventually the last page was turned and now I... Read more
Published on 15 Jan 2010 by Catwoman
Don't be put off if you don't normally read fantasy
The writing is so good, the characters so believable, and the story spellbinding, that I was completely drawn in to the worlds created by Ms Warrington. Read more
Published on 26 Dec 2009 by Penny puddefoot
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