Nina Questor - Ken Catran
Blurb:
The legendary Nina of the Dark has come into her power and won a mighty kingdom - but her battle has just begun. The witchers, those dark lords of evil, still plague the land... and seek Nina's death.
Forsaking both daughter and kingdom, and armed only with her fabled sword Brightsong, Nina is flown across mountains by Illyugi the dragon, at best an uncertain ally. She must quest the Broken Lands for the secrets of her destiny as Nina the Chosen. However, each step of the journey takes her further into the confusion and uncertainty that plague her world - and dreams.
Ahead lies a bloody and treacherous path. That her thumbs ache fills her with foreboding when she links up with Fell, the young, black-armoured mercenary. Can she trust him - anyone - as she seeks the witchers' hidden stronghold to destroy their power?
Or will the witchers destroy Nina, the last hope of her world?
Reflection:
I thought this book was really interesting and was a good sequel to Nina of the Dark. It was also common though, for me when reading the book, to not be able to understand the quest that Nina was taking. I don't think the blurb on the back of the book is very good, looking at it after I have read the book. It tells you Nina's quest when in the book she does not know it herself, and it also portrays Fell (the mercenary) as a strange untrustworthy character, which is not how he is portrayed in the book at all. One of the main ideas in this book was secrets and how they can hurt others if not told. This statement might be true but Catran does not jump enough on the chances for him to portray this to the readers. For example, when the truth about how Fell is a prince comes out, Nina barely cares when she really should have. Either Catran has not made the most of his opportunities or I have grasped the wrong idea. nother theme that Catran portrays is that greed is man-kind's downfall. Examples of this are how Other Nina and her peers created the witchers so that they could do all of the harder stuff for them, that one blew up in their faces because now they are dead and the witchers rule. To access the witcher's lair you must go through a crystal tunnel which is almost the downfall of Welland and would have been had it not been for Nina.This book wasn't very good and I would recommend stopping at the first book. No offense to Ken Catran.
