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anca_antoci's review
5.0
Haven by Ceril N. Domace is an intriguing first book in a series that is sure to leave readers eagerly anticipating the next installment. One of the most compelling aspects of the book is the exploration of familial love, specifically how far Owen is willing to go to protect his children. The reader is quickly drawn into Owen’s world, feeling the depth of his love for his family and the lengths he will go to keep them safe, even when it means stepping into dangerous territory.
The world-building in Haven is equally impressive. The blending of the fae with humans is seamlessly executed, and the variety of fantastical creatures is vividly described, making it easy for readers to visualize and immerse themselves in the story. The characters are multifaceted and their personalities are intricately woven with the supernatural elements of the story, making them both relatable and intriguing. The reader will find themselves invested in the characters, often forgetting they are not human.
The only downside of the world-building is that it can feel contradictory in places, leaving the reader struggling to connect the dots. This is compensated by the strong focus on character interaction and dialogue, which adds a level of realism to the book, even in its fantastical elements.
The book is well-paced, balancing moments of domesticity with epic fantasy battles. The contrast of young children caught up in massive fantasy brawls is both charming and terrifying, adding to the overall sense of tension and danger.
Read more: https://www.summonfantasy.com/reviews/haven-by-ceril-n-domace-book-review
The world-building in Haven is equally impressive. The blending of the fae with humans is seamlessly executed, and the variety of fantastical creatures is vividly described, making it easy for readers to visualize and immerse themselves in the story. The characters are multifaceted and their personalities are intricately woven with the supernatural elements of the story, making them both relatable and intriguing. The reader will find themselves invested in the characters, often forgetting they are not human.
The only downside of the world-building is that it can feel contradictory in places, leaving the reader struggling to connect the dots. This is compensated by the strong focus on character interaction and dialogue, which adds a level of realism to the book, even in its fantastical elements.
The book is well-paced, balancing moments of domesticity with epic fantasy battles. The contrast of young children caught up in massive fantasy brawls is both charming and terrifying, adding to the overall sense of tension and danger.
Read more: https://www.summonfantasy.com/reviews/haven-by-ceril-n-domace-book-review
theirresponsiblereader's review
This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.
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What’s Haven About?
Let’s start with a little background: In a slightly future US, a scientist triggers a sudden mutation in people all over the world matching a certain genetic profile—these people developed certain abilities and displayed physical changes to match. Think X-Men like Beast, Nightcrawler, and Angel. For various reasons, these people take on the generic name of Fae and adopt the names of mythical/fantasy species that line up with their appearances/abilities.
Like every movie and comic book—and common sense—tells us, humans don’t react well to this. In fact, they try to exterminate the Fae. The Fae prefer to live and fight back. Eventually, the war ends and two “reservations” are set up for the Fae to live in. One in northern Canada and one in England. In Europe, tensions ease and the Fae are able to integrate pretty well with humans. In North America, the United States particularly, it gets worse and worse, with vigilantes hunting those newly Changed.
The novel starts fifty or so years after the war on the worst day of Owen Williams’ life. He’s out for a nice evening with his family when everything goes wrong—his wife dies in a traffic accident as he was speeding her to the ER. It turns out that she was in pain because she was beginning to change into a Gryphon. What’s worse—his children have been taken from his home, apparently kidnapped.
Reeling, he’s approached by a Fae who offers Owen a choice. Come along as they smuggle his children to their hidden city for their own safety (it’s likely some or all of his children will Change now) or never see them again. He throws in his lot with the Fae at a time the Cold War between them and the US is starting to heat up.
The Worldbuilding
This is a great piece of worldbuilding—yes, there’s an element to it that feels like The X-Men or Alien Nation or other fantasy series about people thought to be fictional revealing themselves to humanity. But while Domace’s take is familiar, there’s a freshness to it, too.
Also, there’s a reason so many stories are told with a similar framework—it works really well. I’m not criticizing anything by saying it’s familiar, I’m simply describing it.
The differences between the two settlements (we don’t see the UK version, but we hear about it) is a very nice touch. Our focus is on settlement in Canada, Tearmann. It was very well thought out and executed. My favorite thing is that other than what’s required due to physiology (dragons need more space than dwarves, etc.) the city and society is integrated—dwarves live alongside shades and elves. Sure the wolves tend to pack together, but they also are good neighbors.
Quibbles
Please see what I called this section—quibbles. Not “systemic problems” or critiques.
I think this world’s concept of Fae could’ve been introduced better. I hear “Fae,” I think races/species, not mutation. When it was said that Owen’s wife was Changing it threw me—had this been a secret she’d been keeping from him? Could she change back and forth?
His children could’ve been better developed and differentiated earlier—for most of the book, my investment in them was solely based on them being “Owen’s children.” For most of them, that changes by the end. But it takes too long for that (also, I had a hard time keeping them straight because we didn’t get to know them as people). This is fine when it comes to Tiffany, his wife—I’m okay with caring about her solely because she’s his dead wife—she dies so early I don’t need to know much about her (see: Uncle Ben Parker, Scout Finch’s mother, etc.)
One of the quirks of this series is that your fantasy creatures (largely) have everyday names—Jason, Peter, Betty, etc. They’re 0-3 generations away from humans and largely stick with the names they grew up with. This goes down as a plus in my book except for in the beginning—I’m still struggling to figure out what name goes with which of the five Wilson children and I get a Fae team named Jason, Nathan, Tony, Abey, etc. Just so many names flying around without a lot to associate them with. My quibble is only with this being unnecessarily not-easy for the reader.
Lastly, the events of the novel that come after the Wilsons are smuggled out of the country happen too quickly. We’re told the family adapted and fell into a routine after X happens—and then learn that it’d be three days? That’s not time for a comfortable routine for a family of 6. Deep friendships develop far too quickly, etc. (particularly between Owen and the Queen). Change the specifics about days and weeks in this part of the novel, and I wouldn’t have noticed. But they call attention to themselves when they become too difficult to believe.
To sort of take back what I said at the beginning of this section—I guess I have a systemic quibble—Domace needed to give everything more space, let it breathe a little, let the reader as well as the characters, be in the moments a little more so things can develop. I loved the platonic friendship between Owen and the Queen, but it happened too quickly, for example.
So, what did I think about Haven?
I want to stress here that I enjoyed this—but the things I liked are either too specific for a brief post like this or involve spoilers. I spent a lot of space on quibbles because it takes space to explain them. But something like “I loved the platonic friendship between Owen and the Queen,” is just ten words—to say more would ruin the experience for a reader.
Here’s another vague compliment—each Change that happens to a Wilson child is done perfectly—the child’s reaction, the family’s reactions, and the community’s are so great that I wanted to read them again just to see.
There’s a gentle humor shown throughout the book—adding just the right amount of flavor to some descriptions and keeping some dire scenes from being too gloomy. Domace’s descriptions of the people and city of Tearmann are vivid enough to prompt the reader’s imagination to fully see them.
Do I think this book could’ve been better? Sure—most things can. This is book is so close to being very good that its stumbles seem more obvious than others, though.
At the end of the day, I liked this book—and am curious about the sequel, because I think the choices that Domace makes are interesting and I want to see how things get resolved. I recommend this to readers of Mike Chen—it’s a similar mix of SF/F story with family drama (the ratio favors the SF/F than Chen’s typical ratio) as well as all readers who want to see a new and fresh twist on familiar ideas.
thetomatowriter's review
4.0
3.75 rounded up. This book took a bit to grow on me, but it did, and I'm definitely intrigued for the continuation of the series. The worldbuilding is lush and interesting, and Owen's family as the heart and center of the really holds up. I loved all of them, and you can see how much they love each other, but Domace also doesn't pull punches when it comes to the STRAIN that all of this trauma has had on them.
In his attempts to protect his family no matter the cost, Owen sometimes finds himself being pulled away from them, and that has consequences. It was painful to read sometimes, because I could understand his perspective and that of his kids, but it felt very real and added some rich conflict to the story. I will also say that I didn't predict ANY of the Changes that happened over the course of this book. I had theories and all of them were wrong, so that was well done.
As another reader pointed out, there are a couple content warnings to be mindful of. The biggest one is an on-page, pretty brutal child death. That's NOT a trigger for me, and even I felt the wind kind of knocked out of my sails by it. I didn't see it coming. So if that is a trigger for you, be mindful. This book deals HEAVILY with grief, especially in a family setting, and I think it does so with a lot of care and heart. There's also a brief line in the last chapter from one of the characters that felt a bit ableist, implying that someone was unfit to rule because they had bipolar disorder.
Overall, the characters would have me coming back, but I'm very interested to see what comes of the world, too.
In his attempts to protect his family no matter the cost, Owen sometimes finds himself being pulled away from them, and that has consequences. It was painful to read sometimes, because I could understand his perspective and that of his kids, but it felt very real and added some rich conflict to the story. I will also say that I didn't predict ANY of the Changes that happened over the course of this book. I had theories and all of them were wrong, so that was well done.
As another reader pointed out, there are a couple content warnings to be mindful of. The biggest one is an on-page, pretty brutal child death. That's NOT a trigger for me, and even I felt the wind kind of knocked out of my sails by it. I didn't see it coming. So if that is a trigger for you, be mindful. This book deals HEAVILY with grief, especially in a family setting, and I think it does so with a lot of care and heart. There's also a brief line in the last chapter from one of the characters that felt a bit ableist, implying that someone was unfit to rule because they had bipolar disorder.
Overall, the characters would have me coming back, but I'm very interested to see what comes of the world, too.
seacore's review
emotional
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
biblionerdrflxn's review
emotional
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
***Thank you to BBNYA for providing a copy of the book. My review contains my honest thoughts about my reading experience.***
My thoughts on this one are mixed. I enjoyed learning about the world the author created, and the characters really tugged at my heart. However, the pace of the story was just dreadfully slow at times, and the writing wasn't always the best. For example, I had trouble tracking what was going on in some of the action scenes.
I liked the world-building. I found the struggles of the fae to be realistic, and I was fascinated, and a bit horrified, by the process of changing that turned humans into fae. There were so many different types of fae, and I enjoyed learning about each of them. My only problem with the world-building was the delivery. It was really slow and primarily delivered via lengthy dialogue. There was so much telling happening that it felt like I was reading the slowest lecture in history. I found the information on the history of the fae in this world fascinating, but it was a huge drag on the story.
The characters and the family dynamic were the things I loved most about this story. These children grasped hold of my heart and would not let go. The entire family went through so much trauma in this story, and I was in my feelings right along with them. I also liked seeing a story about a father and his kids because it is not something I read nearly often enough. Although, the father, Owen, did get on my nerves sometimes because his characterization was really inconsistent. The text kept saying he was so worried about his kids and would never leave their sight again, and then he'd be off to some new meeting by himself in the very next scene. He made quite a few choices that left me shaking my head.
The themes related to 'othering' were timely and important. The story illustrated how important it is to get to know people rather than demonizing entire groups based on preconceived notions and baseless propaganda. The transition of the fae and the persecution they faced afterward reminded me of the challenges facing trans people, who are often demeaned and attacked for transitioning into their true selves. I'm not sure if it was the intention of the author, but that's what I took away from it.
Was this book perfect? No, but I still enjoyed it. The world-building was clever despite being a bit clunky in its execution, and I would die for the children in this book. I came to love them that much. Therefore, I rate this book 3.5 out of 5 stars.
My thoughts on this one are mixed. I enjoyed learning about the world the author created, and the characters really tugged at my heart. However, the pace of the story was just dreadfully slow at times, and the writing wasn't always the best. For example, I had trouble tracking what was going on in some of the action scenes.
I liked the world-building. I found the struggles of the fae to be realistic, and I was fascinated, and a bit horrified, by the process of changing that turned humans into fae. There were so many different types of fae, and I enjoyed learning about each of them. My only problem with the world-building was the delivery. It was really slow and primarily delivered via lengthy dialogue. There was so much telling happening that it felt like I was reading the slowest lecture in history. I found the information on the history of the fae in this world fascinating, but it was a huge drag on the story.
The characters and the family dynamic were the things I loved most about this story. These children grasped hold of my heart and would not let go. The entire family went through so much trauma in this story, and I was in my feelings right along with them. I also liked seeing a story about a father and his kids because it is not something I read nearly often enough. Although, the father, Owen, did get on my nerves sometimes because his characterization was really inconsistent. The text kept saying he was so worried about his kids and would never leave their sight again, and then he'd be off to some new meeting by himself in the very next scene. He made quite a few choices that left me shaking my head.
The themes related to 'othering' were timely and important. The story illustrated how important it is to get to know people rather than demonizing entire groups based on preconceived notions and baseless propaganda. The transition of the fae and the persecution they faced afterward reminded me of the challenges facing trans people, who are often demeaned and attacked for transitioning into their true selves. I'm not sure if it was the intention of the author, but that's what I took away from it.
Was this book perfect? No, but I still enjoyed it. The world-building was clever despite being a bit clunky in its execution, and I would die for the children in this book. I came to love them that much. Therefore, I rate this book 3.5 out of 5 stars.
bookdragonstbr's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
I really enjoyed this story. I loved all the different species of fae and how they come about. The governments role in the book fit perfectly. This book had me emotionally wrecked at times and that's not easy to do. I love watching the characters grow and can't wait to read the next book in the series.
linked_soul's review
4.0
A very interesting fantasy novel! I think what I liked the most about this book was that it doesn't just introduce a land of fae and leave it at that: the author really took time to develop the book, think about the infrastructure, the political system, the foreign policies, healthcare, housing, the relationships between the various fae species, education, and how it fits within our world. There's a HUGE worldbuilding work done that usually never appears in other books and I really loved that about the book. It did make the book feel rather slow-paced to me because of the amount of exposition necessary, although the fact that a lot of characters are curious children asking questions about their new home is an excellent exposition vector. There is a lot of dialogue and exposition in this book, though, more than plot - I'd say the world is more worldbuilding and character-based than plot-based. It did make me wish more things happened and it took me longer to read because of that, but I also understood it wasn't an action packed book and enjoyed it plenty as it was.
It can be sometimes complicated to keep track of every character because there are many, but I liked them a lot (Beira is super cool!). The whole family is adorable, I loved their close relationship and Owen's struggle between trying to keep things "as it was before" and moving on in his and his family's new life, trying to be a good father (and he is!!) while messing up sometimes because he's only human and he has to act as the family's pillar. I also really liked his friendship with Beira!
Overall, Haven is a great book with very detailed and thought-through worldbuilding, an adorable family relationship, and very interesting themes. I wish it'd been more plot-focused because most of the book is about Owen discovering Tearmann and learning about it, and that was a bit long for me, but I liked it a lot regardless and look forward to future books!
It can be sometimes complicated to keep track of every character because there are many, but I liked them a lot (Beira is super cool!). The whole family is adorable
Spoiler
and boy did I cry when David diedOverall, Haven is a great book with very detailed and thought-through worldbuilding, an adorable family relationship, and very interesting themes. I wish it'd been more plot-focused because most of the book is about Owen discovering Tearmann and learning about it, and that was a bit long for me, but I liked it a lot regardless and look forward to future books!
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