Daughter of Havenglade

     The Daughter of Havenglade series is a high fantasy, action adventure, coming of age story following a young enchantress called Lorenna as she comes into her power and fights evil. This is a review of the first three books in the series, Daughter of Havenglade, Black Dragon Deceivers, and Blood Cauldron.

     The Daughter of Havenglade is, so far, a series that improves with each new book. This necessarily means that the first book, the titular Daughter of Havenglade, is the weakest. The first book in the series, while generally inoffensive, does suffer a bit from weak plotting, with various important plot points and elements not receiving sufficient to either deliver their full potential (as in Lorenna’s mother actively trying to kill her in a murder-suicide) or simply feeling a bit perfunctory, as in Lorenna’s relationship with her master and enchantress training. The murder suicide is a really dark, and character-defining moment, but it barely affects the plot aside from initiating it, and exerts little effect on Lorenna herself.  This leads into the characterization throughout the series, which I found generally a bit weak; an example of this is how Lorenna is thirteen years old in the first book, yet neither behaves like it, or is treated like it by any of the other characters or the author. This characterization paired with the perfunctory plotting results in a first book that is fine but lacks a certain amount of cohesion in its various elements and conclusion.

     The Black Dragon Deceivers improves dramatically on the plotting, structuring a better flow of events, decisions, machinations, and just better situations in general. The characterization is also stronger, though still on the weaker side, with the characters around Lorenna adding natural layers, conflict and drama due to the plotting. It is just a richer, more refined narrative, albeit the execution still fails to live up to the full potential. 

     Blood Cauldron, the third book in the series, continues to improve, with several cool concepts and scenes. A significant portion of the story is dedicated to Lorenna being bewitched into serving the villains, and this is a conceptually engaging concept but still suffers a bit from execution. The bewitchment is only lightly implied, which does affect the narrative since without this ensorcellment Lorenna’s actions are frustrating and nonsensical, and there’s not much interplay in it. Lorenna’s balks are certain actions she is compelled to engage in, but she doesn’t rebel, or ever begin to recognize that she is being influenced. (The implications are so mild that I could just as easily interpret the narrative as her not being manipulated, but I chose to believe the ensorcellment because it’s a mor interesting setting and because of the aforementioned irrationality of her actions otherwise.) The story also concluded with a genuinely well-structure and cool siege battle, with clear progress, giants, pegasus knights, multiple distinct stages, etc , etc. Just a generally fun sequence.

     Something that all three books in the series struggle with is its magic users. The magic system itself is fine, perhaps a bit ambiguous or too simple, but its implementation through its magic users is underwhelming. There are many supposedly powerful and skilled wizards in the course of the book, and Lorenna herself is regularly described as such, and there are just as many times where those supposedly powerful users, Lorenna included, will use a single spell and then be magically exhausted. It is both underwhelming and a bit of a painful dichotomy in Lorenna’s case. By the events of the third book, she’s roughly two-ish years older, has been on multiple adventures, fought powerful sorcerers, shapeshifters, ridden dragons, been betrayed and more; all of this amounts to a characters that thematically deserves every drop of acclaim she receives, only to use a single spell to minimal effect and being magically spent.

     All in all, Daughter of Havenglade is a decent little high fantasy series, none of the first three books are particularly long, with rewarding concepts and scenes later in the series but a fairly weak beginning.