Wednesday, February 11, 2015

Review of Light Of Lorelei (Tales of Skylge #2) By Jen Minkman @JenMinkman





Light Of Lorelei




Published January 10th 2015


Blurb:


There is no light without shadow,
no truth without sacrifice,
and no way to keep us all from harm.
 


Aska wants more out of life than being a temple girl in the St. Brandan Convent of Brandaris. Her life-long service to the Baeles-Weards is the only reason she wasn’t killed immediately after birth – she is atoning for the sins of her parents. Her Anglian mother and Skylger father were never supposed to love each other and have children, and Aska is reminded of her low status and illegitimacy by her fellow temple girls every day.

But then she meets Tjalling, a young, mysterious, and charming Skylger fisherman who doesn’t seem to care that he is not supposed to befriend her. Soon after they meet, the island falls prey to the largest Siren attack in the history of Skylge and Aska is beginning to doubt the wisdom of the priests. If the Light in the Tower really keeps the people from harm, why are the Shriekers taking more and more lives each day?

Adding to her inner turmoil is a secret meeting with Royce and Enna, who want to recruit her into their resistance movement, an unexpected confession from her best friend Melinda, and Aska’s realization that she likes Tjalling a bit too much for her own good.

Soon, she is going down a road there is no turning back from, forcing her to make choices that shake the foundations of her world.
For Aska, there is only one true choice – to bring the truth to light.





Excerpt:

By now, the beach is completely empty. All fishermen have fled into their houses to escape the evening heat and cool off under the shower. This is my shoreline now. For just a split second, I imagine what it would be like if these sands weren’t dangerous – if the beach were a place to relax on summer nights. Would we have live music and restaurants crowding the coastline, bonfires and barbecues? Couples strolling through the surf while holding hands? I don’t know where these thoughts come from, popping up unbidden in my head. Vaguely, I remember seeing a postcard from Grins once, sent from the mainland to Mother Henrietta. She’d tacked it on the cork board in her room a long time ago, but was asked to take it down again. It was a black-and-white photo of a seaside very much like our own, but this beach was alive with entertainment and smiling people and – love. I feel a sudden, wistful ache in my heart at the thought that I’ll never hold hands with anyone, walking down the beach or any other road. I’m just like Mother Henrietta, sworn to work for the convent till the day she dies.

 That’s when I see him.

A solitary walker, strolling up to me from the direction of the sea. It’s a tall man with broad shoulders, and I inadvertently take a few steps back, gingerly glancing at the wooden steps behind me leading back to the quay. I’m out here all alone and nobody knows where I am. I don’t know much about the world outside, but I do know being out at night with a strange man in a lonely place like this might not end well. If I run really fast, I might make it to the safety of the quay before he gets to me.

But for some reason, I can’t move. Inwardly, I beg for this rambler to mean me no harm. My fingers clutched around the book page relax somewhat, though, when he comes closer and I see that he’s not really a man. He’s a boy not much older than me, though his muscular frame suggested otherwise from a distance. His light-brown hair is wet. Has he been – swimming?

 “Hi,” I say, trying to make my voice as steady as I can. If I greet him first, I’ll have the home advantage. I’ve been to this beach countless times, even after sunset. He will not scare me away.

“Hello.”

 I blink up at him. This is strange – the second he speaks, I sense I don’t have to worry. His voice sounds so gentle and harmless that he can’t possibly be dangerous.


My Review:

I received a free copy of the book from the author for my honest opinion.

Aska lives on the island of Skylge where the people that live on the island are divided into two different groups of people. One group is the Anglians and the other group is the Skylgers. The Anglians are what I guess you might call the rich folk and Skylgers are the poor people. The Anglians have electricity but the Skyler’s do not. An Anglian and a Skyler cannot be together. They can’t have relationships. If they are caught together they are usually murdered it is against the law of the Anglians for them to be together. The Anglians are the rulers of the island because they are the beholders of St. Brandon’s fire that keeps the Sirens or merfolk from taking the people on the island.

Aska is part Anglian and Skylger who has to pay for her parent’s sin or what the Anglian’s call a sin or say is against the law. Aska lives at the convent and is a temple girl who has no choice of being a temple girl like the other girls or maybe like most of them. Aska is having to pay for her parents sin of loving each other by being forced to live at the temple while the other girls are there by choice and do not have to dedicate their whole life to the temple.

Sometimes Aska just has to get away from the temple and be alone in order to deal with the fact that she has to spend her whole life living at the temple while the other girls have a choice. She has to get away because the girls are always picking on her because she doesn’t know who her parents are and for the reason that they were not of the same ethnicity. Aska likes to go for walks on the beach to be alone and to think about things. One day while walking on the beach she meets a fisherman. When she first sees him she is not sure if should or could trust him but she puts on a brave face and keeps on walking on the beach instead of turning around and running away from him right straight back to the temple. She finds out that the fisherman Tjalling is nothing like she thought he might be. He is a very nice dude and of course she doesn’t even notice how good looking he is much less that he is sort of built like a brick sh*t house as the saying goes.

Aska and the girls that live at the temple sing to the merfolk or the siren to keep them calm and to hopefully keep them taking the lives of the people who live on the island. Their songs help to keep the sirens satisfied so they will not attack them. Aska likes and wants to help keep the people on the island safe but she also wants to have a life of her own just like everyone else on the island. She wants to have someone who will love her and take care of her just like every other girl.

Aska finds out a whole lot of things that some folk will kill to keep secret but at the same time most of the folk on the island doesn’t have a clue to what is really going on. I can’t wait for the next book in the series to find out more about the sirens and Brandon’s fire. Whose story will we get to know next? Whose life will we find out about in the next book the Fire of Fryslan? I can’t wait to learn more about the Skylgers and the Anglians as well as Aska’s parents and their story. I would also like to know more about St. Brandon’s story as well. There are so many stories to know and learn about the people who live on the island of Skylge.


I love reading Jen’s books I always get some kind of message out of them. I have been a fan of Stephen King for a very long time at least thirty years and in my opinion Jen is like Stephen she has a message for you in every book that she writes. If you like Stephen King then you will definitely like Jen Minkman. I would recommend any book that she has written to everyone even if you like Stephen King or not. Of all the books that I have read by Jen there has not been a one of them that I did not like. 


Sound of Sirens
(Tales of Skylge #1)
Cover linked to Goodreads






About The Author:

Author photo JenMinkman.jpg
Jen Minkman (1978) was born in Holland, in the town of Alphen aan den Rijn. When she was 19, she moved between The Hague, Salzburg (Austria), Brussels (Belgium) and Cambridge (UK) to complete her studies in intercultural communication. She is currently a teacher of English, career counsellor and teenage coach at a secondary school in Voorburg, Holland. She tries to read at least 100 books a year (and write a few, too!). She is a published author in her own country, and translates her own books from Dutch into English for self-publication.

In her spare time, she plays the piano, the guitar and the violin. For every novel she writes, she creates a soundtrack.

'I have always been drawn to writing. My first book was a sci-fi novel at the age of eight, which I painstakingly typed out on my dad's typewriter and illustrated myself. Nowadays, I stick to poetry, paranormal romance, chick lit and/or fantasy. In my home country, I am the first-ever published writer of paranormal romance, and I will gradually make my books also available in English (seeing I have to re-write and translate the books myself, this will take some time!).


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