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vkemp's review
3.0
Mari Prothero is the daughter of a Welsh fisherman. She is also an Elemental Master although she does not know it yet. Her father has kept this secret from her until her 18th birthday. When he tells her, she is angry at him for keeping this information from her because she thought she was insane for seeing all the Tylwyth Teg, the little people of the sea, water sprites and nymphs, the great black water horse and the Gwartheg Y Llyn, the Celtic fairy cattle. Now she must marry a Selch, a human who becomes a seal in order to preserve her father's luck at fishing. Mari demands the Selch chieftain send men to court her and someone to teach her magic control. A selkie is a seal who becomes a person.
Nan and Sarah are not magicians, but they work with the White Lodge in London and when Lord Alverstone finds out there is a new Water Master in Wales, he sends them to find more information about Mari. The three girls become fast friends and Nan and Sarah, along with Robin Goodfellow, help Mari outwit the Selch chieftain. This was another great entry in the Elemental Masters series although it was a little verbose in places. Entertaining.
Nan and Sarah are not magicians, but they work with the White Lodge in London and when Lord Alverstone finds out there is a new Water Master in Wales, he sends them to find more information about Mari. The three girls become fast friends and Nan and Sarah, along with Robin Goodfellow, help Mari outwit the Selch chieftain. This was another great entry in the Elemental Masters series although it was a little verbose in places. Entertaining.
eak1013's review
2.0
Yep, still reading these terrible, terrible books. Still enjoying them enough to keep on, though. What is remarkable about this one is how it seizes on the trend from several of the previous, in which nothing really happens. Or, well, stuff happens, even on a regular basis, but the rise and fall of action is negligible; plot points are tossed about carelessly, and the drama! and tension! that you can see coming from the second chapter really only coalesce in the last twenty pages and are neatly resolved as always.
That being said, I did enjoy much of the non-narratively-important happening of stuff. It reminded me a bit of [b:The Fire Rose|176881|The Fire Rose (Elemental Masters, #1)|Mercedes Lackey|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348696485s/176881.jpg|2595], or at least the bits I enjoyed most about that one (which, come to think of it, was really the first in this series), in that it was a very comfortable book, in and around the drama! and plot! and just reading about people having a Christmas and New Years celebration which is atmospheric but entirely irrelevant to pretty much everything else in the book is kind of soothing. Lingering, loving detail is spent on a train journey, the narrative importance of which was pretty much, "They got from A to B. It took a long time. They met a guy." Which takes, like, almost as many pages as multiple final confrontations/battles.
Oh, Mercedes Lackey. That pretty much could be the entire review, just, "Oh, Mercedes Lackey." And, well, you'd know what I mean, wouldn't you?
That being said, I did enjoy much of the non-narratively-important happening of stuff. It reminded me a bit of [b:The Fire Rose|176881|The Fire Rose (Elemental Masters, #1)|Mercedes Lackey|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348696485s/176881.jpg|2595], or at least the bits I enjoyed most about that one (which, come to think of it, was really the first in this series), in that it was a very comfortable book, in and around the drama! and plot! and just reading about people having a Christmas and New Years celebration which is atmospheric but entirely irrelevant to pretty much everything else in the book is kind of soothing. Lingering, loving detail is spent on a train journey, the narrative importance of which was pretty much, "They got from A to B. It took a long time. They met a guy." Which takes, like, almost as many pages as multiple final confrontations/battles.
Oh, Mercedes Lackey. That pretty much could be the entire review, just, "Oh, Mercedes Lackey." And, well, you'd know what I mean, wouldn't you?
glennisleblanc's review
3.0
The fairy tale this one uses is Tam Lin and I think this is the first time someone in the story actually mentions it. The plot uses selkies in place of the Fairy queen and a little help is provided from two London characters from previous books. I think they were used more to show that they are no longer children and I have to wonder if they would get a spin off series of their own. Not my favorite of the Elemental Masters but a nice read to while away an afternoon.
fran11's review
4.0
3.5 stars rounded up. Not a straight fairy tale retelling but it combines enough selkie/selch/seal folk lore and stories, to belong on this shelf I think.
dreamerf641c's review
3.0
I liked the premise of this book, and I liked Mari Prospero. And I probably would have loved this book almost as much as Phoenix and Ash, if it hadn't been for the inclusion of Sarah and Nan. I didn't like them in Wizards of London, and I didn't like them in here either. And honestly, they kind of felt like page filler. What felt like half the book (probably not actually accurate) was devoted to them, and I don't really understand why. They could have been removed with very little ease, Mari could have thought up the same solution as Sarah (or was it Nan?) did, and the fact that she hadn't was pretty bizarre. It wasn't like thinking about having her teacher get introduced as her cousin was a groundbreaking idea. There was already a bit of a set up with the cottages being less plentiful than people who wanted them.
And if Nan and Sarah hadn't been existing and being "useful" then more time could have been spent on Mari's courtship (which.. wasn't really shown at all) and more time could have been spent on the selch world or something. Or this could have been an eighty page short story.
I dunno, I liked this, but I didn't love it, and I absolutely skimmed over all the Sarah and Nan parts (seriously, they added NOTHING to this story. Seriously!)
And if Nan and Sarah hadn't been existing and being "useful" then more time could have been spent on Mari's courtship (which.. wasn't really shown at all) and more time could have been spent on the selch world or something. Or this could have been an eighty page short story.
I dunno, I liked this, but I didn't love it, and I absolutely skimmed over all the Sarah and Nan parts (seriously, they added NOTHING to this story. Seriously!)
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