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17th out of 20 books
—
33 voters
Fortune and Fate (Twelve Houses #5)
by
Sharon Shinn
The compelling new novel in the national bestselling �superior fantasy series� (Publishers Weekly).
National bestselling author Sharon Shinn�s �lyrical and entertaining� (Kirkus Reviews) Twelve Houses books have captivated readers and critics alike with their irresistible cocktail of fantasy, romance, and adventure. Now Shinn returns with a new novel set in the same world,...more
National bestselling author Sharon Shinn�s �lyrical and entertaining� (Kirkus Reviews) Twelve Houses books have captivated readers and critics alike with their irresistible cocktail of fantasy, romance, and adventure. Now Shinn returns with a new novel set in the same world,...more
Hardcover, 416 pages
Published
November 4th 2008
by Ace
(first published October 4th 2008)
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I am a huge Sharon Shinn fan. Archangel is one of my very favorite comfort reads and so is Mystic and Rider--the first in Shinn's Twelve Houses series. Her characters become friends so quickly I forget what life was like before I read them. That's why the Twelve Houses series is so much fun. It follows a disparate group of six travelers who, despite differences of rank, temperament, and fundamental beliefs, become first allies and later friends. Shinn tracks this six of them through four book...more
view all 8 comments
Dec 02, 2008
Jeffrey
rated it
4 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
Shinn fans of her Twelve Houses series
Shelves:
fantasy,
read-in-2008
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
I've liked Shinn's books in the past, for the most part. Some more than others, of course. But this one felt like she just wasn't ready to let the world go. I can understand that. So often, fantasy stories end with the huge conflict. There is no sense of what comes later; the rebuild, reassembling of lives, fortunes and nations. This novel does do that a bit, which is interesting.
But. You can call me a prude (and you wouldn't be the first, and you won't be the last), this trend of increasing the...more
But. You can call me a prude (and you wouldn't be the first, and you won't be the last), this trend of increasing the...more
Nov 08, 2008
Bianca
rated it
3 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
Sharon Shinn fans
Shelves:
sci-fi-fantasy
Sharon Shinn is always a good storyteller, but it seems that she has eeked every bit of creativity she can out of her Twelve Houses series/Gillengaria world. As the fifth book in the series, we have seen it all before. The book has two subplots woven together: Wen, the de-moralized King's Rider struggles to find inner peace after failing in her duty to King Baryn in the last novel. Meanwhile, the original cast of six from the previous four books travel on a tour of the southern houses to drum up...more
While I didn't find this as good as others in the series, it was good. The problem is that most of the book was static, stuck in Fortunalt, on the Fortune estate. It got a teeny bit boring hearing about Wen following Karryn about and playing connecto with Jasper day after day after interminable day, or training the guards in the same repetitive fashion.
Also, I think Sharon Shinn might want to think slightly more subtly about honor and loyalty. This thing that she has about the King's (and Queen'...more
Also, I think Sharon Shinn might want to think slightly more subtly about honor and loyalty. This thing that she has about the King's (and Queen'...more
I think this is my favorite of all the books in the Twelve Houses series, which is unfortunate because I had to slog my way through several I didn't much enjoy to get to it. Fortune and Fate nicely inverts several of the usual romance genre tropes -- instead of the hero being a brooding ball of angst over a mistake in his past, here the heroine suffers from some pretty serious survivor's guilt. Additionally, it is the hero who is the nurturing, empathetic one, who waits for the heroine to get he...more
Mar 17, 2012
Estara
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
fans of the series, or of fantasy romance
Recommended to Estara by:
auto-buy series
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
I'm a little shocked that I didn't like this novel. Normally, I love Shinn and I think she's a great fantasy writer.
Ultimately, I think that this novel failed for me because the main character, Wen, just didn't have a very compelling "demon" chasing after her. She didn't die protecting the king? So what? Neither did many of her fellow riders, but she still seems to respect them...
The simplicity of her self-torture simply makes Wen appear childish. In addition to that, her interaction with the...more
Ultimately, I think that this novel failed for me because the main character, Wen, just didn't have a very compelling "demon" chasing after her. She didn't die protecting the king? So what? Neither did many of her fellow riders, but she still seems to respect them...
The simplicity of her self-torture simply makes Wen appear childish. In addition to that, her interaction with the...more
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
I've been a fan of Shinn for a while now, but she definitely has this habit of staying where she's comfortable, and, as a result, she usually ends up grinding each of her long-running series into the ground. She did it with the Samaria books, and now she's done it with the Tweleve Houses. Fortune and Fate departs from the "original crew" of characters that forged the bonds of friendship in Mystic and Rider (because all their stories have already been resolved with true love and marriage) and for...more
Fortune And Fate focuses on a character NOT part of the original six that I grew to love with the past 4 books. Which is why I waited -and with the waiting, forgot most of the details. What is great about Fortune And Fate is that it can almost serve as a standalone novel with occasional references to earlier books and homages to the already-loved characters. I could settle back into the world of Gillengaria, and still find it as exciting and new as ever!
Wen reminded me of Tamora Pierce's strong...more
Wen reminded me of Tamora Pierce's strong...more
This was my least favorite of the Twelve Houses books. I re-read the previous four leading up to this, and when placed back to back like that their similarities began to wear on me. Four romances with class distinctions as their primary conflict got tiresome, especially when so few people actually seemed to care about the class issue in any other setting. Perhaps it is true, what the British say, that Americans simply do not understand class the way people with a history of an aristocracy do --...more
I really liked the first four books, and this one did not disappoint. Many good authors fall into the trap, when writing a sequel, of devoting too much time to a new or peripheral character in the same setting, frustrating readers who loved the first books' characters. Sharon Shinn found the perfect balance, making Wen a character worth reading about in her own right, but still giving Senneth, Cammon, and the rest plenty of screen time, and I was just as happy to read about both of them.
As the b...more
As the b...more
After King Bayrn was killed during the uprisings led by houses Fortunalt and Gisseltess two years previous, Kings Rider Wen has felt nothing but regret and guilt for letting the king be killed while under her protection. Unable to face her fellow Riders, she refrained from swearing allegiance to Queen Amalie and instead set off in search of redemption - by aiding anyone in need of help. In her travels Wen rescues young Kayrrn Fortunalt - serramarra and future marlady of Fortunalt - from a young...more
I stopped reading Sharon Shinn a few years ago--not because the quality of her writing declined, but simply because the whole premise of the angel series didn't work for me. I picked up Fortune and Fate on a whim because it's set in a completely different medieval-y fantasy world and the premise sounded good. Yay me!
I really enjoyed this book. Even though it's the 5th in the Twelve Houses series, it can be read as a standalone. Adventure, romance and lots of character development. Although char...more
I really enjoyed this book. Even though it's the 5th in the Twelve Houses series, it can be read as a standalone. Adventure, romance and lots of character development. Although char...more
I wish there were half stars on Goodreads. This was a very pleasant read, but not quite earth-shaking or enough to make me go out and tell everyone on my flist that they should read it too. I've enjoyed this series, but it's getting a little tired, and I'm getting more than a little tired of the central core of oh-so-perfect characters. This one focussed on an outsider, Wen, or Wella, whom I should have remembered from a previous book but didn't, so can't have made a huge impression on me before...more
I was surprised when I found out there was one more book in the Twelve Houses series. Of course, I had to read it, and I enjoyed the point of view of another character taking the lead of the story. Shinn follows the same formula of mismatched romance and fantastical political intrigue.
Wen was one of the last standing in the previous books when King Baryn was killed, and she can't let go of the guilt. She appears as a minor character in some of the other books, and becomes the main character in...more
Wen was one of the last standing in the previous books when King Baryn was killed, and she can't let go of the guilt. She appears as a minor character in some of the other books, and becomes the main character in...more
I was disappointed when I first started reading this book that the main character was Wen, a Rider that had been mentioned but had little part in previous books in the series. She's a strong character and I like her, but it made the book feel like another random story in the same "world" rather than the next book in a series.
There were some weird inconsistencies. When Cammon was visiting the other southern houses, they made a big deal about the marladies/marlords being limited to a guard of 50 a...more
There were some weird inconsistencies. When Cammon was visiting the other southern houses, they made a big deal about the marladies/marlords being limited to a guard of 50 a...more
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
I was worried I wouldn't like this book as much. It's a thread from the previous series. The book focuses on Wen. We hear about her a little in the first four and we know she left because she felt she had betrayed the king. And the story takes place two years after the war. But, I was engrossed immediately. A different view point. A different story. But the author found a way to include our group of six from the first 4 novels, which pleased me. But it was still Wen's story. And I also really li...more
An epilogue of sorts to the Twelve Houses series (which begins with Mystic and Rider, which is the book you should start with). I was a bit disappointed in the book, because although it is set in the same world as the other books in the Twelve Houses series, it mostly follows a Rider (one of the King or Queen's elite force) who failed in her mission and now feels she must atone for things. I didn't have nearly as much connection as I had to the other characters (who appear, but are not the focus...more
Wen was once a Rider, until the day her king fell. She blames herself for not dying before him, and she now feels that she is worthless and unreliable. Leaving her old life and friends behind her, she sets out alone. Three years have passed when she saves a young girl from her abductors. She then discovers that this girl is Karryn Fortunalt, heiress to one of the Twelve Houses. Wen returns her safely to her uncle and guardian, who offers her a job getting his soldiers into shape so that Karryn w...more
I liked this book almost as much as the first three. I loved that the original characters were still a big part of the plot. I'm still not sure how believable the love interest was, but it didn't bother me as I was reading, so I guess it was believable enough. I think the only thing that made it hard to fully click was the fact that Wen was not very feminine.....at all. The other female characters were tough and could kick butt just like Wen, but they have a definitive feminine side too. Other t...more
Fortune and Fate suffers from the same issue as most of the previous books in the series: very little actually happens. Most of them were a prequel to the main action, with lots of road trips and gathering of information; this one is a clean-up after the action, with, oddly enough, lots of road trips and gathering of information. If you accept that that's just the way these books go and if you love the characters, it doesn't really matter, since the characters are very interesting and lovable.
I...more
I...more
I really loved this book right up until somewhere around 3/4 of the way through it. I was doubting that I would like this book nearly as much as the other books in the series since the main characters of the previous books aren't in it as much. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I liked it every bit as much as all the other books in this series. The reason I only gave this book 3 stars instead of 4 or 5 was because I was quite turned off by Wen and Jasper's lack of morals toward the end of...more
I was curious who's point of view would be used for this book. I never would have guessed Wen's. A fun continuation of this fantasy world, but not as good as the others, and not really necessary - the fourth book was a great conclusion piece. Although it was nice to see how the young royal couple did - I wouldn't mind another book to see how they progress. Anyway, the romance was slightly disparate - Wen's in her twenties, and the guy is twice her age. I always find those type of romances a litt...more
This is one of my favorite fantasy novels. I love it and have read it at least three times. The protagonist Wen is on the run from her private demons. Two years ago, she was a King’s Rider, a respected member of the elite palace guard, until a disaster struck: during her watch, the king was assassinated. Despite being gravely wounded while protecting the king, Wen feels that she had failed in her duty. Afflicted by the survivor’s guilt, she abandoned the Riders and her own self-respect. Now, she...more
I really liked this book. The characters are very interesting. From beginning to end the whole book was enjoyable. The plot was very good. I couldn't put the book down. This is the best series written by Sharon Shinn. I didn't like her other series that much.
For the most part I liked Wen. I do think that Wen should more caring to Karen, even though her father plotted against the king. You can't blame Karen for what her daughter did. Wen does a good job training the men and women who are to prote...more
For the most part I liked Wen. I do think that Wen should more caring to Karen, even though her father plotted against the king. You can't blame Karen for what her daughter did. Wen does a good job training the men and women who are to prote...more
Actually, I'd give this book 4 1/2 stars.
Fortune and Fate is part of Sharon Shinn's "Twelve Houses" series, set in Gillengaria. This novel takes place two years after the end of Reader and Raelynx and tells the story of Wen, a former King's Rider who exiled herself after being unable to save the king's life. She's tortured by guilt and believes she must travel the country helping strangers to atone for her failure. She thinks she is unworthy of friendship and cannot be trusted with anyone's life...more
Fortune and Fate is part of Sharon Shinn's "Twelve Houses" series, set in Gillengaria. This novel takes place two years after the end of Reader and Raelynx and tells the story of Wen, a former King's Rider who exiled herself after being unable to save the king's life. She's tortured by guilt and believes she must travel the country helping strangers to atone for her failure. She thinks she is unworthy of friendship and cannot be trusted with anyone's life...more
I enjoyed this 5th installment of the "Twelve Houses" series, though it took a bit of adjustment to accept someone other than one of the main 6 characters (or one of those characters' love interest) as a main narrator for the book. Once I got used to having Wen as a narrator, though, I got sucked back into the world Shinn has created and enjoyed the story she told. Very nicely done.
(And though Wen was the focus of the story, there was enough told from the POV of one of the 6 to keep me happily u...more
(And though Wen was the focus of the story, there was enough told from the POV of one of the 6 to keep me happily u...more
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I’ve been writing stories and poems since I was eight years old. My first poem was about Halloween: "What is tonight? What is tonight?/Try to guess and you’ll guess right." Perhaps this inauspicious beginning explains why it took me till I was in my thirties to sell a novel. It occurred to me early on that it might take some time and a lot of tries before I was able to publish any of my creative w...more
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