Golden Daughter by Anne Elisabeth Stengl (Lizzie)

Secret societies, deadly assassins hidden as dainty maids or refined gentleman, a brother sold into slavery and rescued, an empire at stake. Anne Elisabeth Stengl's Golden Daughter contains all this and more. The seventh and final full-length novel of the Tales of Goldstone Wood series, it's a hefty book (570 pages), but well worth the read  (Note: I believe it was originally published as a series of smaller books).

Blurb for Golden Daughter 

Sairu is a Golden Daughter, which means that, officially, she doesn't exist. But, like her sisters, she's very much alive and very thoroughly skilled in disguise and in detecting and eliminating threats to whomever may become her master and husband. But unlike her sisters, Sairu doesn't wish to serve anyone unworthy, and so instead of becoming a wife and secret-protector to a king, she chooses to protect a Dream Walker from the moon goddess's temple. This puts the Golden Daughter in the way of the equally legendary and dangerous Crouching Dragons.

After Sairu joins the Dream Walker's service, she is commanded to guide her mistress safely to a distant temple. Many are their adventures as she tries to determine the strange illness besetting her mistress, the trustworthiness of an orange cat with unusual abilities who seems to be trailing them, and just who it is that's trying to kill the Dream Walker. And what to do about the handsome slave she helps rescue. Even aside from all of these issues, keeping her mistress safe is a much bigger job that Sairu anticipates, for the Dragon is after her as well, with a deadly plan as far-reaching as the Moon.

Brothers Sunan and Jovann are also important characters. Sunan, a weak, cast-out man who wants desperately to become a scholar, to be as different from his nomadic, barbaric tribal-leader father as possible, is forced into becoming one of the Crouching Dragons. Jovann, Sunan's favored younger brother, possessed of secret abilities, wants to further this father's cause of revenge against the entire empire, but is kidnapped and sold to slavers. Their paths take unlikely turns and will affect both an empire and the heavens themselves.

Thoughts on Golden Daughter 

With an Eastern-like setting and featuring only the beloved faerie cat Monster (Eanrin) from the early books, Golden Daughter feels a good bit different than its predecessors at a surface level. Yet, Stengl's prose is just as lyrical and her story world as rich as ever. I must admit that the prologue was a little slow and confusing (but it was set in the dream world, so that is probably why), but I very much liked the book overall. With adventure, endearing characters, romance, beautiful prose, and intriguing plots, what's not to love? Though it is the seventh of the Tales of the Goldstone Wood series, you don't have to have read the earlier six to read this one. It is a richer story if you have, but it isn't necessary.

Top 3 Fantasy Names I Wish I Could Pronounce (Lizzie)

One of the characteristics of a fantasy novel is the strange words. You have strange character names, place names, plant names, creature names, and spells and incantations. Those strange and sometimes beautiful tongue twisters are part of the fun of exploring a new world, but they can can also make it difficult. How do you talk about a favorite character when you and your friends pronounce his name differently? How do you feel when the actors in the movies or the audio book narrators butcher the pronunciations you've been using? Do difficult character names actually induce you to give up on a novel? If names are too strange, I'm tempted to put the book down, especially if the plot was only so-so.

Which words from your favorite novels do you most wish to know how to pronounce? Here are some names from favorite stories I wish I knew how to pronounce.

Earning finding Starflower from Starflower

1) Bard Eanrin from the fabulous TALES OF GOLDSTONE WOODS series by Anne Elisabeth Stengl. I adore this character. As a faerie, he's sometimes a cat and sometimes a man, but always both in a way and always my favorite character. He's a minor character in the first story, Heartless, but gets increasingly important as the series moves on. It's true that his name isn't long or particularly complicated, but I'm still not exactly sure how to pronounce it. I tend to glance at words and then make up a pronunciation, so I'm never sure, even when I slow down to carefully read and think about a name, if I'm pronouncing it correctly.

It's comforting to know that sometimes the characters in stories mispronounce other character names by mistake or for humor. That's always fun. In Heartless, Una's brother deliberately calls Prince Aethelbald Prince Applebald (Aethel being a common part of a king's name in the Anglo-Saxon days, I believe).


2) Aravis from C.S. Lewis's The Horse and His Boy from THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA. Again, this girl's name isn't long or complicated, but still I want to know if I am pronouncing it rightly. Is it A-rav-iss or air-a-vis or ...? Either way, I'm convinced it sounds beautiful.


3) Prince Fyrian This is a favorite character from my first set of stories, which I will one day rewrite and publish. Is it sad that he's my character and I don't know how to pronounce the name? Sometimes to give a character a more exotic name, I'll make one up, sounding out different words until I come up with one I like. Then I try to find a spelling that matches what I'm saying. Other times, as in Fyrian's case, I look up Latin or French words to match some aspect of the character. Fyrian comes from looking up "fire"; it means "firing." But I imagine it sounding like "Syrian" with an "f" at the beginning instead of an "s", and not sounding like "fire" at all. At least, that is what I remember doing to find the word. I looked for it again and can't find it.


How do you feel about unique names in novels? Do you want to know how they are made up or what language they may have come from or what they mean? Which words do you want to know how to pronounce?

Top 3 Time Travel Stories (Lizzie)

Hi, everybody! I’m Lizzie (or, if you want to be proper, Elizabeth Jane Kitchens). I’m excited to be part of Lands Uncharted and look forward to getting to know you through the comments section. A little about me: I live in Alabama with Phoebe, my large, fluffy, white Great Pyrenees, and I write YA fantasy fiction.

Now that we’ve settled the important matter of introductions, on to today’s post: Time Travel Stories. To the future, to the past. To here, to there.

 1. Dreamhouse Kings by Robert Liparulo

This YA fantasy adventure series begins with House of Dark Shadows and continues for another five action-packed books. I loved this series—the characters, the action, the history—and read it in record time.

Teens Xander, David, and Toria King move with their parents from L.A. to a creepy Victorian fixer-upper in the middle of the woods. Strange things soon begin happening, like odd sounds with nothing to make them and giant footprints in dust. Then there’s the episode where David hides in the linen closet and ends up in locker 119 at school.

If that was the worst, then the old house would be just creepy enough to be cool, but the siblings soon find a hidden hallway with portals to different times and places in history—but only to the wars, to the invasions, to the doomed cities. And it’s to those places their mom gets kidnapped, stuck in a time travel loop. Can they choose the right portal at the right time to save their mom—if they can survive the war zones they much search? 

2. Shadow Hand (Tales of Goldstone Wood) by Anne Elisabeth Stengl

“Oh, Shadow Hand of Here and There
The Stone of ancients kills
To free his fiery, fickle Fair
From death beneath the Hills!”

I love the Tales of Goldstone Wood. I read the first six books, and then re-read them. Anne Elisabeth Stengl has a beautiful, old fashioned voice that’s perfect for the fairy tale adventures she writes. The characters, the legends, the story world, are all marvelous.

Shadow Hand is book 6 in the series, so I wouldn’t recommend starting there (Heartless in the first book). However, I couldn’t resist mentioning it.

Every human knows that to enter the Goldstone Wood is to perish. There are the sylphs (who can, if you survive their dance, spit you back out of the Woods at any time or in any world), the Black Dogs (who might drag you down to Death), an enchanted river, and who knows what else. Yet to the Woods Princess Daylily flees on her wedding day, and to there the jilted groom—none other than the dandy Prince Foxbrush—must go to save her. Or to try to save her—Foxbrush is no hero.

Marrying Daylily was one part of Foxbrush’s plan to save his struggling kingdom, but when he’s sent from the Woods by a strange and beautiful creature straight from his childhood nursery rhymes (and who claims he’s the nursery rhyme hero King Shadow Hand of Here and There), he emerges at the right place but the wrong time. Foxbrush soon he realizes that his kingdom needs saving as much in the past (where he’s stuck wearing animal hide and sleeping in a hut) as in the future. Can he become the hero his kingdom and his reluctant bride need him to be?


3. A Kid in King Arthur’s Court

I loved this Disney movie growing up. Teenager Calvin Fuller (who cringes every time he’s forced to go up to bat in a baseball game) is pulled into Camelot by Merlin. 

Calvin must help save King Arthur’s city and restore the aged king’s confidence. He also has to train as a knight, defeat a villainous lord, and save King Arthur’s lovely daughter. 

When he’s not learning to be a hero, he’s introducing Princess Katey to the Big Mac (and explaining that the Poisonous Love Apple is, despite its name, fabulous on a hamburger) and teaching people how to roller blade. 

Of course, I can't discuss time travel without at least mentioning the beloved standards: H. G. Well’s The Time Machine, the Dr. Who series (I grew up watching the old series with doctors one–eight, but haven’t watched the new), and, of course, the Back to the Future movies. 

What are your favorite time travel stories? Have you seen or read any mentioned here? Have any to recommend?