Daughter Of Exile by Isobel Glass
01/07/2004 . Source: Jennifer Howell 

pub: TOR. 365 page hardback. Price: $24.95 (US), $34.95 (CAN). ISBN: 0-765-30745-6.

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Ho hum. Another day, another first timer female fantasy writer.

TOR are obviously hoping to sell this in the Patricia A McKillip mould from the lush and lovely cover art (very similar to McKillip's 'Alphabet Of Thorn' cover by the same artist) and from the fairytale-ish beginning, you can see where they got the idea. Unfortunately, Isabel Glass lacks McKillip's equally lush way with language and situation and it seems a shame to give 'Daughter Of Exile' a pedigree that it really doesn't live up to.

The daughter of the title, Angarred, is the only child of a court noble exiled for reasons never revealed to her since she was 4 years old. Daddy not being the most pleasant person - he doesn't exactly have the reader's heart bleeding when he gets offed by a mysterious assassin one day.

Angarred, despite having been mostly ignored her whole life by the miserable git, is distraught and decides to run off the royal city he was exiled from to seek revenge/find out who killed him.

Throw in one male lead mage who's got troubles of his own, a little royal intrigue and a mysterious magical artefact thought lost for years...

So far so already done to death by the genre: Mercedes Lackey for one, off the top of my head. Glass' writing is perfectly competent but the path the plot runs is very tired indeed. The trappings of an elaborate and innovative system of gods and afterlife beliefs serve to enliven the whole premise far more than should be necessary, sadly, and aren't really reason enough alone to read the book.

How much you'll like this depends on your tolerance level for/love of generic fantasy tropes. There are odd moments where the characters spark some level of sympathy but they never really come alive enough to warrant caring about. Even Mathewar, the obligatory love interest, manages to make a potentially interesting drug addiction terminally dull.

If you're looking for the comfort factor in fantasy, this is probably for you. It's a reliable enough trek through everything that serves to make up the romantic fantasy end of the genre these days - a little restrained, if anything, to be classed as that.

It never really moves beyond a YA level in many aspects though and there's a whole host of more inventive books out there I'd rather be reading. Right now, it's just tiresome.

Jennifer Howell