Truthseeker
| Title: | Truthseeker |
| Author: | C E Murphy |
| Genre: | Fantasy |
| Series: | Worldwalker (1) |
| Copyright: | 2010 |
| Ranking: | Good |
| LibraryThing: | Title:Truthseeker ISBN:978-0-345-51606-0 (Add Book) |
| Type: | Owned |
Gifted with uncanny intuition, Lara Jansen nonetheless thinks there is nothing particularly special about her. All that changes when a handsome but mysterious man enters her life and begs for her help. He says she is a Truthseeker, and the only one who can prove that he didn't murder his brother. The catch? Dafydd is a prince of Faerie, and he wants her to come with him to the barrow-lands.
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(24)
Truthseeker
completed
H
Start:2011-12-30
End:2011-12-31
(fantasy)
more than just a knack for truth
Thoughts
Good. Not mind-bogglingly amazing, but good.
Plot
Not quite there-and-back-again, more "a stranger who returns home finds home strange". I couldn't predict what was going to happen, which is a good thing. The things that surprised me were still logical, rather than being pulled out of thin air.
Characters
Lara rings sympathetic for me, a shy, pedantic, backroom creator of things both beautiful and functional. The portrayal of an extraordinary gift from the inside, where it doesn't seem extraordinary, not when one has lived with it all one's life, not when the only practical difference that it seems to make is to cut one off from the polite lies that grease the wheels of society.
I have to give bonus points for Kelly, Lara's best friend. She's her own self, much more outgoing than Lara, quite a different person to Lara, but still loyal and understanding and teasing and cajoling and being a busybody. But sticking with Lara when it counts.
Style
Not particularly notable, neither clunky nor lyrical. It works. The descriptions of the Seelie and Unseelie and their lands evoke a strange beauty. It works.
Ideas
I like how the Truthseeking is portrayed; song and dissonance, how lies - even white lies and exaggerations - make Lara uncomfortable, sometimes to the point of pain. Then her talent grows into something more powerful and more perilous, but still at its heart, Truthseeking. True, and beautiful, but never comfortable.