BLACK SWAN RISING

TITLE: BLACK SWAN RISING

AUTHOR: LEE CARROLL

Pages: 427

Date: 14/08/2011

Grade: 4.5

Details: no. 1 Black Swan Rising

            Received from Transworld Publishers

Own

This book was a very pleasant surprise for at least two reasons.

I had not realised this, but Lee Carroll is a pseudonym for Carol Goodman and her husband, Lee Slonimsky.

I have been a fan of Goodman’s books for years, ever since I read The Lake of Dead Languages in 2002 and was delighted to discover that she has (co-) written books I never knew existed.

The second surprise was that this book was more literary than most urban fantasies/vampire novels I’ve read so far. I guess that is probably because Goodman is the author she is and can’t help herself but write beautiful and well worded descriptions that somehow float off the page and become visible to me.

She has, with Black Swan Rising, written a book that has far more supernatural elements than the previous books I’ve read by her, but her characters are as real and well-rounded as I would expect from this author and the story has several levels and few, if any, simple black and white contrasts.

This story is about Garet James, a fairly successful jeweller, who is worrying about the financial difficulties she and her father find themselves in when she stumbles upon an antiques store she didn’t know existed. When she enters she meets the old shopkeeper who asks her to use her soldering knowledge to open a silver box for him, which she does the same evening.

Although Garet doesn’t realise it opening that box has set in motion a chain reaction that will change her life and the world around her forever. Darkness is slowly descending on the world around her. She will meet creatures she thought only existed in fairy-tales, fall in love with a creature she should fear, learns secrets about her heritage and be burdened with the task of saving New York from a horrible fate.

Garet and the reader are about to start a rollercoaster ride through emotions and action that will push both of them forward through the pages of this book.