The Changeling Sea ★★★★☆

~ Bookstooge

changelingsea (Custom)This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress, Blogspot & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission
Title: The Changeling Sea
Series: ———-
Author: Patricia McKillip
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 142
Format: Digital Edition

 

Synopsis:

Peri’s father went to sea in his rowboat and only his boat returned. Her mother has retreated inside herself and Peri is angry at life itself. She leaves her mother’s house and lives in a shack by the sea where an old woman taught her the fine art of hexing. Peri creates as many hexes as she can think of and one day throws them all into the sea and hexes the sea for stealing her father.

The King of the Island and his son Kir come into their summer residence and Peri meets Kir one night on the beach. He confesses that he has found out he is a changeling and part sea creature. He desires to go to the sea but can’t find the way. Peri is interested against her will. Then a monstrous sea creature is seen with a golden chain around its neck. The villagers hire a magician, Lyo, to tame the sea monster and take the golden chain for them. Lyo gets Peri to help him and accidentally turns the golden chain into a rain of periwinkle flowers. Nobody is very happy with Lyo, who disappears.

The next night Peri is at her shack when she sees the sea monster approaching the shore. It comes onto the shore and turns into a young man, very like Kir in appearance but golden where Kir is dark. This young man can only repeat words he has heard and so Peri begins to teach him words. But each night before the sun rises this golden prince returns to the sea and his monstrous form. Peri is bewildered and Lyo reveals himself to her. They figure out that the golden boy is the prince by the King’s dead wife who was taken by the Queen of the Sea, who was the lover of the King. She substituted her own son, Kir. Now each son is yearning to return to their native element but neither can figure out how.

Peri, with help from Lyo, solves the mystery. Her hex worked and it was so powerful that it hexed the whole sea. Peri unhexes the sea and that allows them to commune with the Sea Queen and Kir can return to the sea while the golden prince can return to the land. Peri realizes how powerful she is and Lyo says he’ll stick around to help her out.

 

My Thoughts:

Very enjoyable, very short and one of the most “romance’y” of McKillip’s books. While not Harlequin Romance or even most Paranormal Romance level, this was on the edge of what I’d be willing to read. That is about the only caveat I have for this book.

The shortness of this book really struck me this time. I started it one evening during the week and I was done the next night. It was kind of nice actually. I felt like I had gotten a small personal pan pizza instead of some huge buffet. Just enough to get a good taste but not enough to satiate or make you sick of it. Gluttony of words by authors is as much a sin, as far as I’m concerned, as is actual gluttony.

This lacked something, a richness I guess, that I’m used to in McKillip’s writing and that is why I’m only giving it 4 stars. Still, that is a Star upgrade from 2007. If you like McKillip’s other books, you’ll like this. Whether you’ll like it more, less or the same as her other books will depend on your personal tastes.

★★★★☆

 

bookstooge (Custom)

 

 

45 thoughts on “The Changeling Sea ★★★★☆”

    1. Oh man, are you one of “those”?
      I like pineapple in smoothies or as a flavoring, but I don’t like actual pineapple. And sweet on a pizza has just always confused my taste buds…

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  6. It’s short, so maybe I’ll chance another McKillip and see how it goes 🙂 The first one didn’t go too well but the pizza comment makes it definitely more appealing! 😀

    Liked by 1 person

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      1. It was Winter Rose. Gorgeous cover, wonderfully poetic prose, but the plot… In the end I had a strong impression of reading a book that wasn’t so much in the field of fantasy but rather psychiatry – a history of hereditary mental instability. It wasn’t bad, but it didn’t sweep me of my feet 😉

        Liked by 2 people

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          1. That must be a first! 😂 😂
            On a serious note, though, I liked it too – just not as much as I expected, and then I think I prefer McKinley, whose style is very similar yet stories seem more engaging to me. I will try another McKillip, though – and this seems like a good entry 🙂

            Liked by 1 person

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    1. McKillip seems to be one of those disappearing authors. I was hoping when they re-issued Forgotten Beasts of Eld that more young people would explore her body of work, but Eld never seemed to take off…

      Liked by 1 person

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        1. But how can one get better than a Kinuko Craft cover? I mean seriously, they are the most gorgeous covers I’ve EVER seen.
          You know what, I bet it has to do with “rights” and stuff. Bloody publishers….

          Liked by 1 person

          Reply

    1. This is actually a pet peeve of mine. The lengthening of books into tomes nowadays makes people think that 150 pages is a novella. It’s a short novel, a full novel.

      Sadly, that is just one argument I’ll never win against the Publishers…

      Liked by 1 person

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