The Barbed Coil

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Summary: thank you for respecting your devoted readers jv
Review: I began my fantasy readings as a little girl,anything that fell on my hands that had magic, wizards,fairies,castles,dragons,etc.. was avidly read and reread by me.The words became images in my mind I dreamt of those stories. I am 48 now and still have this passion for a fantasy tale,I have read Tolkien,Eddings,Brooks,McKiernan, Reichert,but you really sent my imagination flying. All your four books are fanastic and I am hoping to find the sequel to Barbed Coil when I visit USA next February.Thank you for doing such a great job and keep going girl, your fans are proud of you.By the way, English is not my main language so please forgive any errors in my writing,thank you. Merry Christmas to you all!!!

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Summary: A must read book for all the bookworms in the world!
Review: This book is a great read and very entertaining. The only draw back is that the main character takes to long to reach her magical potential, and uses it almost not at all in the book. This makes the magic more of a coincedence then anything else

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Summary: Exciting, fast-paced, great character development!
Review: I stumbled upon the Baker's Boy trilogy and loved it! Naturally, I had to pick up the Barbed Coil and was not disappointed! Possible one of the best books I've read in years (even better than Jordan's WoT). Time travel has been done over and over, but this is refreshingly original and not as fantastical as time travel often gets. A must read! I can't wait til Jones comes out with another book, I love her stuff!

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Summary: Couldn't put it down.
Review: This book was fantastic and I hated for it to end. After reading the "Baker Boy" books I wondered if she could write another book anywhere comparable to them. I wasn't disappointed the book was just as good. I can't wait till she writes another.

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Summary: J.V. Jones does it again
Review: I was very pleased with this new book by J.V. Jones. Once I got into the book, I spent a sleepless night trying to finish it! It is refreshing to see another great SF author appear on the scene, and if this book is any indication of future works, I see more sleepless nights ahead of me!

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Summary: A great fantasy novel...
Review: This book is a great fantsy novel, containing a huge amount of action and adventure. The characters are indepth, well written characters, and the storyline is both basic and complex at the same time. If you eye for fine detail in a story, like adventure and mystery, this book is for you!

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Summary: Another fine fantasy from J.V. Jones
Review: JV Jones latest fantasy epic has all the things a discerning fantasy fan could want. Nice writing, tight plotting, great characterization, and lots of well-drawn action. The atmosphere is familiar enough to feel like home, yet offers enough surprises to keep even a jaded reader up late at night. It's always refreshing to read fantasy in which the heroes are both men and women, and Jones offers us Tessa and Ravis, well-drawn, complex characters, whose motives are not always the purest. The author's depiction of warfare also benefits from her awareness of life's complexity, with heroic figures actually wondering if all this killing is necessary. Not exactly Gandhian, but still pretty enlightened for a fantasy novel. My only gripe, and a minor one it is, is Jones's fixation on her main character's lips; they are constantly touching, rubbing, biting or chewing their lips. Used once or twice, such a detail conveys a sense of the character's anxiety. Used a few hundred times, and I don't think I'm exaggerrating, and the reader develops a strong desire to tell the characters to bite their nails, take up smoking or something, anything but chew their lips. That being said, let me state clearly that the book's many merits far outweigh this lapse into repetition. The Barbed Coil is a must read for fantasy fans. And Ms. Jones is a writer to watch for.

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Summary: an imaginative concept . . .
Review: New characters, new storyline, new magic. This time, we have two heros and two heroines facing incredible danger from different directions. Will they be able to save the world in time? This cliffhanger is the complete story in one volume. The ending left me smiling and content to savor the story. I didn't want to start another book and spoil the feeling

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Summary: Good concept, Hollywood ending
Review: (...)
Good idea for a story, and for the most part well done, but Jones lacks maturity in her need to tie up all of the loose ends into a neat little package. Every character that was met along the way got a mention in the last chapter and without fail: the good guys were rewarded and the bad guys were punished. The treatment of the banker was especially strange, as it did absolutely nothing for the plot, and only served reassure everyone that every bad person always gets it in the end. Honestly, it's almost as if Jones finished the book, read it to an eight year old child, and then rewrote the last chapters to make sure all of the child's questions were answered.
4 stars for the first 90% of the book/1 star for the ending

Rating:
Summary: A uniquely new way of looking at magic
Review: I grew to respect J.V. Jones in her Book of Words series. She is truly skilled in making an adventure feel very real. The Barbed Coil puts an interesting new spin on magic. It is almost refreshing to have a different method to fantasy books. Instead of the usual pattern -- bad thing happens, group forms, journey ensues -- Jones gives us something entirely new. There is a journey, but the problem has to be solved through ink and paper rather than battles and conventional ideas of magic. So why did I give it four stars?? I spent well over half of the story trying to decipher just what the story was. Plus, there is a huge rush at the end to tye up loose ends that is almost completely unsuccessful. I was left unfulfilled at the end, after hundreds of pages of fighting that should have killed all of the characters anyway. This would have made a five star rating if Jones had managed to find her story a bit faster. I think it took her half the book to decide where she was going with her ideas.