A very typical McKillip fantasy novel. In a vast palace by the sea, there is a library under the palace. The librarians take in foundlings, including one young girl, Nepenthe. In a short span of days she is given two unusual pieces to translate - a document on strange 'paper' with a text of fishes and a small book, with an alphabet of thorns/briars. Add to the cast a young wizard, an old wizardess, a young male librarian desperately in love with Nepenthe and an equally young queen totally out of her element. There are big magical things going on, as well as small ones and it all takes place fairly quickly in this short novel. Great characters and great atmosphere, as always. ( )

http://bactra.org/weblog/algae-2004-12.html#mckillip ( )

I've enjoyed many of Patricia McKillop's books, but I think this one is my favorites. A sweet not-too-long tale about a kingdom, a new queen, mages, a scribe and a book.

Maybe it was the edition of the scribes and a library in the story that did it for me. I liked this world that Patricia created and had to leave it too soon. ( )

sorcerer's daughter is key to danger to 12 crowns as novice librarian

This was a pretty good read. It was short but the characters were all awesome (though their were too much of them in my opinion). The sheer number of them was really unnecessary and confusing and annoying, but surprisingly the book was still interesting. It was amazing that she could do so much in so few pages. The ending was also wonderfully sweet.

The only thing that really put me off was that Nepenthe is described as having dark skin (her skin stays "hazelnut" coloured though she hardly ever goes outside) but the girl on the front and back covers is really white. This isn't a fault of McKillip's necessarily because the publisher and artist had that job but it still really upset me. ( )