"Firetale" Finale Review.

 Things begin to happen a little too quickly in the final chapters.  Greg dies, is resurrected by Martha, whose body is killed while her consciousness is in Greg's body, and then we find out she's actually a goddess, all in two short chapters.  Too, too much all at once.  Plus, it is difficult to understand why the Judge would bother killing Martha at all.  She obviously hadn't broken the pactum, and he wasn't even sure she was a demionis.  She hadn't done anything that could have warranted an execution, and yet he killed her when she was defenseless.  Sure, we'd seen enough of Judge Ciaus to know that he was a bastard who would kill indiscriminately, but this still seemed beyond him.

The end is abrupt (a pseudo cliffhanger meant to make you want to read the next book, but doesn't).  Though it sets up the whole goddess story line to be the potential focus for the next book, the fact that we knew nothing about the goddess until the very end of the first book doesn't create a strong emotional connection to that potential plot.  The Astorath story line was completely ignored in the last few chapters, and we don't know where Zaches ran off to.  The story we were following for the first book is left unfinished, and a new one is shoved in its place at the eleventh hour, and it feels wrong.  In fact, the last few chapters of "Firetale" almost feel like they were written by a different person.  The voices of the characters feel different.  The descriptions of events feel like they flow differently.  Maybe this part of the story was written at a different time than much of the opening chapters, but there is definitely a disconnect that is unpleasantly jolting in the final quarter of the book.

We're also still seeing chapters from other points in time that have no relation to the current story.  Maybe they'll come into play in the next few books, or maybe they're not meant to be anything more than mental breaks, or to stretch out the number of pages.  Whatever their intended purpose, they feel unwelcome.

This book had so much promise in the opening chapters.  I was inspired by the number of characters, by how well each voice was written.  Now I'm disappointed.  I think that Dante E. Graves just tried to do too many things in this story and it turned it into a bit of a muddled mess.  Very unfortunate.  I'm not even sure I'll bother with the second book in the series.  I just don't know if I care enough about the characters anymore, and I know that I don't want to suffer through such unnecessary back story and exposition just to finish off the Astorath story line.

Ursuala Vernon creates the perfect little Wicked Witch for "Castle Hangnail"

The beautiful writing style of Ursula Vernon paints a backdrop for this little the likes of which is not often seen in juvenile fiction, or adult fiction for that matter.  The ensemble of characters each have their own, well-rounded personalities, and distinct voices.  Though most of the story is told through the eyes of Majordomo, the hunchbacked guardian of the castle, the rest of the cast feels just as important and central to the story.


There was some concern, near the beginning of the story, that Molly Utterback didn't fit with the rest of the cast.  She felt too insignificant in comparison.  While the other characters had obvious motives, desires, and traits, Molly was intentionally hiding who she was, which kept her in the shadows of the others.  The parallel between how Molly fit into the story and how the writing of Molly fit with the writing of the other characters leads me to believe that this was actually intentional on the part of Ursula Vernon.  As Molly begins to open up to the other characters, the writing of her becomes more stable and feels less disconnected from the rest of the story, just as Molly is finding her place in Castle Hangnail.


Molly is a 12-year-old girl with some innate magical talent and a belief that she's destined to be a wicked witch, rather than a good one, because she has an identical twin sister who is incredibly bubbly, friendly, and loves the color pink.  Molly learns some spells from a teenage evil sorceress in her home town, and steals the sorceress's invitation to come live at Castle Hangnail as its new Master.  When Molly arrives, Majordomo is unconvinced that she belongs there.  He is worried that she's not wicked enough, or perhaps not witch enough, to be the new master of an evil castle.  But the rest of the minions take to her with ease, and she quickly picks up new spells that endear her to the local village as well as the local wildlife.  Her natural talent with herbs and a quick friendship with a plant loving neighbor, have the castle gardens looking well in no time.  But, when the evil sorceress comes to take possession of the castle, Molly must decide just how wicked she is ready to be.


The choices Molly must make, and the revelations that she goes through, regarding how others see her and have used her, may be fantastical, but they are relatable to any young person who is trying to figure out their place in the world.  We all have natural talents and compulsions, and some of them aren't much approved of by our parents, or taught in our public schools.  Molly makes the decision to go somewhere she believes she belongs.  She tries to be what she thinks they'll expect of her, but learns that being herself, and trying to do the right thing are the only ways to find out where you fit in this world.  Molly finds her true home and learns that there are fewer limits to her abilities that she could have ever dreamed.