The latest of the Elemental Masters series follows the trends of most of the others, young and inexperienced magician discovers his/her power, finds a teacher to guide through the learning process, falls foul of an evil magician and wins through to love. This one takes place in the Appalachians and is written in a dialect that is sometimes difficult to follow.
library book read 1/16/2023 ( )

This story is set in the Appalachian Mountains with a poor miner’s daughter being sent to her root witch aunt to live. Anna May has always been a sickly child with never enough to eat, her father finally allows the child to live with his wife’s sister, a witchy woman who has always sent them herbal medicines that they have sold for cash. Anna May quickly becomes healthy and soon shows an aptitude to magic since she is no longer living on poisoned land. Anna May slowly starts to learn how to make potions and infuse them with magic. As she becomes more comfortable living with her aunt other teachers of magic come to her including Jolene, a magical being that her aunt tells her to watch herself when she is with her. As Anna grows in power a local evil magician finds out about her and wants her to use to increase his power. A good story and nice to see the Elemental Masters stories move back to America.

Digital review copy provided by the publisher through Edelweiss
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The book description on Goodreads is just wrong. Anna's parents do die but she was sent to live with her aunt before their deaths.

The book drags in the second quarter. Both the opening and the last half are well done. The characterization of Jolene is great as is the integration of the Old World into the New.

Most satisfactory read. Recommend. ( )

Let me just preface this review by saying I am utterly THRILLED that this book returns to the Elemental books of old. If this novel had continued the Sarah and Nan (along with Sherlock Holmes et al) storyline, I may have given up altogether.

If only this book hadn't had a few issues... The Appalachian dialect is incredibly distracting (and somewhat inadequate? I don't think "y'all" is used to replace "you" every time.) I also think there was a lot of build-up to a lackluster climax. And as for "Jolene" herself? I love Dolly Parton, and obviously there's a connection here to her song, but Mercedes Lackey doesn't even acknowledge any inspiration from it? Odd. She acknowledges "The Queen of Copper Mountain" influence, why not the lyrics of "Jolene" too?

I did enjoy the book overall, and I liked the incorporation of Russian folklore as well as Cherokee legends. And I am definitely relieved to stray away from Sarah and Nan- but there were a few misses for me here that detracted from my overall pleasure. ( )

Loved it - this was exactly the right sort of fluff I needed right now. Ok, the dialect (throughout the book) gets a little annoying - but it's not bad, just...odd (and y'all as singular is weird. It's becoming true now, not at all sure it was true in period). Fascinating stuff about interactions with Cherokees after the Trail of Tears - the ones who did _not_ get kicked off their land and sent west. I presume there are some facts behind the story. Nice integration of magic with said Cherokee, with Appalachian mines and company towns, with subsistence farmers in the region...and carving gravestones, which I recently learned was a important craft at that period. Anna May is nice; I knew what was wrong with her long before she did, unsurprisingly. Josh is fun. I like Aunt Jinny, too. And Jolene - reveals unexpected depths, in a lot of ways - nice! The only hole I saw was, how did Daran manage _not_ to reveal his attitudes to Jolene until the climax? I'd have expected him to slip long before. He certainly wasn't acting like he was reasonably worried about her, though maybe he was just mad enough to lose that concern. Interesting story; I hope we see more of them. If Anna is a Master, and Aunt Tilly gets her talking to Masters, there may be some complex stuff going on soon. Did Tilly's grandfather actually set up any Lodges, or not? I don't remember any mention of Lodges in Fire Rose, but that may have been the author developing new ideas later in the writing. Anyway. Good entry into the Elemental Masters series, and I think worth rereading for itself. ( )