Warren Rochelle's Blog - Posts Tagged "nancy-hightower"

Elementari Rising by Nancy Hightower

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Fantasy fans, check this out. A lot of this story will be familiar--enough. The small peaceful village, threatened by powerful evilforces, great kingdoms, noble lords, dark forests and darker secrets. The natural order of the world is threatened--can it be saved? Should it?

Then, there are the Elementari, spirits of the earth, fire, water, and air (again just familiar enough). These elemental beings are present in this world, yet sleeping and guarded by the Terakhein, a guardian tribe, special and set apart, who seem to be just slightly from the rest of the humans.

The Elementari are awake and out of control. The world is in danger. Where are the guardians?

In Gaelastad, where the trees never die, in a small village, is our hero, 18-year-old Jonathan, whose dreams are haunted by what seems to be the last of the Terhakein, a little girl. He must find her; this is his quest. The world he knows and loves, his small village, his family, his best friend--are gone, destroyed. With Cadman, a wise old man, his adventure begins and there is supernatural help, as not all the wakened Elementari are evil: "Bryn, a terrible fire spirit, and Morgan, the most beautiful--and deadly--of water spirits."

Thus, this most dangerous adventure begins, and the end of this, Book One of the Elementari, I am left wanting to know happens next, how will this adventure play out.

Hightower has done her job and done it well.

Her world-building is first-rate. I was particularly struck by how GLBT-friendly this world is and how that friendliness, as it were, is woven into the fabric of things as they are in such a way that it becomes so natural, so easy, so casual. In the Prologue, at the Inn of the Three Sisters, a shady place, "off in the corner two men danced cheek to cheek (9). Tarl, the barber, who "llikes his men a bit more brooding [and]His women, too (10), bargains for a mysterious girl-child, who may be a sacrifice to save the missing Terakhein child.

In the village Jonathan wrestles with his best friend, Alec, and asks if he yields, replies, "Yes, damn you, now get off me before someone thinks we're betrothed" (34). Not out of fear, he only wishes to avoid the mistake.

Kudos are in order for this deft way of making her world GLBT-friendly.

I did wish for a list of people, places, events, terms and Elementari. The requisite map helps, especially when Jonathan's journey begins. I just found the many names sometimes confusing.

Well done.



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