Daggerspell

Rating:
Summary: A wonderfull begining
Review: This book is a materpeice. Kerr's knowledge of Celtic history makes the novel a good read, but she doesn't ramdomly pop facts in just becouse she knows them. This book however is a depressingly quick read. I would reccomend buying atleast Darkspell when you buy this. Like any good series, when the book ends, you do not want to wait to begin the next book. Kerrs indepth charictures are rival to those of Robin Hobb.

Rating:
Summary: What! No zero star!
Review: This book is not worth the paper to print it. Confusing, strange and dipressing. The constant them on sex gets very old, and all the whole reincarnation thing is good for is to bewilder the reader. Even the magics messed up. If you want to completly waste 4 hours of your time, I would suggest this

Rating:
Summary: What! No zero star!
Review: This book is not worth the paper to print it. Confusing, strange and dipressing. The constant them on sex gets very old, and all the whole reincarnation thing is good for is to bewilder the reader. Even the magics messed up. If you want to completly waste 4 hours of your time, I would suggest this

Rating:
Summary: Enjoyable, but drags in places.
Review: This entire series had a lot of potential. It just didn't live up to it. Katharine Kerr dwells on some mundane stuff and skims over the exciting parts. The flashbacks got kind of annoying after a while, too, especially when they interrupted scenes that I was really enjoying. At times, they didn't seem to have anything to add to the story, either. An interesting story overall, but there's stuff out there that's a lot better.

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant!
Review: This is one of my favorite books. Mrs. Kerr's Deverry is one of the richest fantasy worlds I know of. What makes this book (and the other Deverry books) so special is the incredible amount of detail put into the creation of Deverrian society. It's based on Celtic culture, which I found immensely interesting.

All her characters are also colorful and very well developed, particularly by the use of reincarnation and past-life flashbacks. The plot is equally intricate, flowing backwards and fowards, so that the events of each "past-life" episode have great influence on all those that follow.

Rating:
Summary: Well written, though confusing at times
Review: This is the first book by Kerr that I have read, and I am pleased I've read it. Kerr's writing, especially fight scenes and description, is believable and captivating. The plot, also, is full of adventure and intrigue and I like the way women feature prominently throughout the story. What I dislike about this book is the broken style and the awkward transitions that tend to confuse things for the reader. Kerr moves back and forth between so many time periods (and it continues like this into the next novel) that I had a difficult time keeping track of everyone in every when, especially when I had taken a break from the novel and had come back to it the next day. It's a shame that the story wasn't just published from start to finish; I think the engaging plot could have held up to this 'traditional' style of writing. Truthfully though, the story is good fun and enjoyable for anyone interested in fantasy stories.

Rating:
Summary: Don't be fooled - it gets worse!
Review: This is the first in an expanding series set in a cod-Celtic world focussed on the "kingdom" of Deverry. At first the story seems to be a refreshing change from so many other endless dragon-fixated "and then they went ...." doorstop epics. There are some surprisingly adult themes, principally incest. The main characters are linked through reincarnation, and the book jumps between parallel storylines set in different time periods. I was so impressed by book 1 that I bought the whole 1st quartet. That was my mistake. While the writing in book 1 is reasonably polished, this edition is advertised as a "re-write". Book 2 is also advertised as "re-written", but the quality starts to slip and continues to fall through books 3 and 4. The historical relationship between the main characters is the notional thrust of the quartet, but after book 1 the alternate "then and now" storylines aren't so closely linked. In book 2 the adult themes are replaced with a depressingly childish "medieval-ised" drug smuggling story. In book 3 the heroine Jill is gratuitously and tastelessly sexually abused. Books 3 and 4 don't benefit from a re-write, and have a rushed first draft quality. There's an increased reliance on dialog, long stretches that read like film-script, which isn't well-written and exposes the poor quality of the character writing. In the final analysis these are historical romances, populated by lacklustre characters, adequately written but operating on the law of diminishing returns. I bought them so I had to read them. Don't be sucked in.

Rating:
Summary: I like this book and the following series
Review: This was my favoriate of kerr's series .. though i thought unfortunately as the series developed that it tended to become disjointed from the theme of the first books ....but that shouldn't stop anyone from reading this book ! it is a very amusing and intelegent read!

There is no doubting Katharine Kerr's ability to write a good story!

Rating:
Summary: Unbelievably believable! I want to go to Deverry!
Review: Two pots of coffee and a sleepless night later, I'm still amazed by what I've just read. Not since Tolkein have I been this mesmerized by a storyteller. Daggerspell immediately plunges the reader into a rich and complex plot of love, intrigue, honor and the mystical, set in the fantastic but very believable land of Deverry. Kerr takes the traditional elements of fantasy -- gnomes, sprites, wizards, elves, and warriors -- and expertly weaves them into a storyline so realistic and compelling that you'll almost believe it is a chapter of our own medieval history. Excellent!