Rating: 
Summary: Not what was expected, but worth the read.
Review: This first foray into fantasy was not what I expected as a loyal fan of Perry's mysteries. I think it is a real departure for Perry and certainly a voyage far from Victorian London, but an admirable first attempt at another genre, albeit slighly mislabeled. Perhaps religious fantasy? As I read this book, the beginning was somewhat unclear to me. I stuck with it as much out of loyalty as stubbornness. By the time I was to the middle, I wondered where else she would go with this story but was intrigued enough by the main character that I could not put it down easily. I felt that the plot was unwieldy and she tried to put too many stories in when each could have been developed into its own novel. Nevertheless, I found so much insight and lessons learned from numerous betrayals and challenges that I found the book worth the read. I often thought about the characters after reading it, not in terms of the individual, but of lessons learned. Right after reading this book, my 5 yr. old was diagnosed with a serious life long illness. The perspective this book brought to mind helped immensely to see trials as a learning and strengthening tool. This battle of good versus evil with a Mormon influence is a bit drawn out but still has enough Anne Perry insight and style that I found it a good read. Perry marketed this book under a "Mormon" publisher and that should have been a clue as to its content. Perhaps those that reviewed it badly, were expecting something else...
Rating:
Summary: I was surprised
Review: I am in the midst of reading this book and I had decided to come online and see how it was reviewed. And i did get a big surprise. Many of you rated it badly, referring it to as half-formed characters and too exaggerated. I am not sure what to say to that because maybe the book is like that, but so far i can't say it is. I thought it was a little different from what i usually read and it gave me a chance to look forward to something new. Maybe my opinion would be different if i were more experience with Anne Pierce's books, but i really think the idea of the story had great potential.
Rating: 
Summary: BORING!!
Review: If you've read the inside cover of Tathea, you will be very disappointed by the actual book. Anne Perry's attempt at a religious lesson will quite simply bore you to tears. The opening of the book holds some promise, but after that things get stupid. Over and over again we hear the same message with a few different characters. Of course, none of these characters actually develop to the point where you would care about the message they are sending. The repetion of the book also becomes incredibly irritating. I couldn't count the times Perry wrote about the suffering and joy suffusing someone's face. In the end, I simply stopped caring what happened to anyone, least of all Tathea. I would not recommend Tathea to anyone. It was shallow, boring, and pretentious in the extreme. Perry should stick to writing mystery novels.
Rating:
Summary: Oh Dear
Review: If you haven't read any of Anne Perry's other books, PLEASE check them out,and do not be put off by this silly, shallow, pretentious, unspeakably bad piece of dreck. I am still having a lot of trouble believing that the same person wrote "Breach of Promise," which was one of the very best mystery novels of the past decade, and also "Tathea." First of all, anyone who had ever taken one writing class would understand more about story values, plot development, and character formation than what we find in this book. Writing isn't simply didacticism. Perry probably would have been a lot better off writing a straightforward piece of devotional literature and not attempting to hitch to a plot (not that that's what you can really call this.) So it's bad writing. Secondly, however, it is depressing that this is only part of all the tenth-rate rejects that get passed off as "Christian" writing, filmmaking, music, etc. I was raised Mormon, so this comment does not stem from some inability to understand the messages of this book!
Rating:
Summary: Not what you're led to expect- disappointing, mis-classified
Review: If you read the copy inside the front cover, this looks like an interesting fantasy story. That, combined with a prior experience of Ms. Perry's skill as a writer might lead you to believe you've put your hands on a good book. The first 25 or so pages live up to this. The next 50-100 start sounding like a morality play. The rest of the book is all about Tathea "spreading the good news"- which sounds a whole heck of a lot like many religious tracts. Not only does it become oppressive; it's repetitive, predictable, pretentious, and of all things, BORING! I ended up skimming sections, simply because one encounter with "another people" sounds _exactly_ like every other one in the book. How many times do we have to read about how Tathea's student questioned her, and as she explained the answer she learned more herself? I can recall that approximate phrase appearing at least a dozen times. The writing was much weaker than I've learned to expect from Ms. Perry- that in and of itself was disappointing. In addition, this book doesn't belong in the science fiction/fantasy section. It would be more accurately classified as religious inspirational or religious fiction. If that's what you're looking for, and don't mind the repetitive, weak writing, you may truly enjoy this book. If, like me, you were expecting an actual fantasy novel up to Ms. Perry's usual standards, you'll probably be very disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: Beware all ye who enter into this book!
Review: I have always loved Ms. Perry's Victorian mysteries. As a scifi fan, I looked forward to her first foray into new worlds. Well, this ...I hesitate to call this mishmash a novel...publication is truly terrible. It lacks everything that makes good fantasy and has everything that makes bad fantasy and pretensious religion! This abomination should have a sign on it "for Mormons only." A waste of time, a waste of money, and a waste of environmental resources.
Rating:
Summary: Don't Bother
Review: It is clear from the reviews that readers of this book fall into two distinct categories: those who read this book expressly for its religious message and those who read it more or less by accident due to their appreciation for Ms. Perry's Victorian mysteries. I fall into the latter category. I found this book at the library in the "new books" section and I was intrigued that Ms. Perry would attempt to write "science fiction/fantasy," which is how my library classified the book. I was sadly disappointed, however, after completing about 50 pages of this book. Because I was traveling and had nothing else to read, I plowed through the entirety of this disjointed, pretentious, religious travelog. The book has no central organizing plot, and after a while you just take it for granted that the wandering Talthea will be taken in by some new band of hardy villagers. Scads of characters come and go, changing loyalties at the drop of a hat. Ms. Perry provided no helpful map of her imaginary land, so most of the time I had difficulty figuring out where the characters were geographically, let alone spiritually. More deft (not to mention entertaining) treatments of good versus evil can be found in C.S. Lewis' books or in Philip Pullman's Golden Compass trilogy.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: Anne Perry should go back to the Victorian novels which she does so well. Tathea, which I did not finish reading, is dull unless you are interested in descriptions of a fantasy land. Ursula le Guin, Sherry Stepper, and the author of the Dune series have already covered this territory in a much more intereesting manner. Perry's social descriptions of Victorian life in her other novels are so compelling that it is hard to see why she has taken off in this new direction.
Rating: 
Summary: a Book of many possibilities
Review: I haven't quite finished this book at the moment, but I intend to very soon. This book will hit people in different ways. If someone is willing to read this book and try to learn something from it, it is a rewarding experience. If the reader tries to read this book comparing it to Anne Perry's other novels or other fantasy novels, that reader will have a completely different experience. I believe that Anne Perry had indeed accomplished something great with this novel. She has given the world ideas to think about, even if one does not believe all of these ideas themselves. I, for one, am a member of the LDS church. I understand and appreciate the values and principles that are in this book. People who are not LDS will also benefit from reading this book, but only if they read it with an open mind and an open heart. There is truth in this book. I am very glad that I had the oppurtunity to read it.
Rating:
Summary: Thinkin' and Dreamin'
Review: I was interested in this book when I saw it advertised by some LDS booksellers, and was suprised when I found it was available at my library. A friend of mine read it and suggested I read it too so we could discuss it. We had talked about the symbolism used in the book and agreed that we could both be better at reading, interpreting and even tolerating symbolic literature. Then she went on vacation, and I got the book. I could barely drag myself through the first 150 pages and it seemed to take forever to get half-way through the book. I was very dragged down by the style of the storytelling and felt frustrated by my inability to "get it". Once I got half-way through, the rest of the book just 'happened'; I was hooked and the story just kind of flowed over my brain. I enjoyed the overall experience very much, though still have some reservations about the whole fiction-as-gospel-teaching-tool aspect of it. As a 'Mormon', it was strange seeing things like "wickedness was never joy" and "no commandment will be given unto you save there will be a way prepared..." I wondered what others would make of these ideas, while I worried about not "crediting" such nearly direct scriptural quotes. Nit-picking? Maybe so. Anyway, I'm glad I read it-I especially loved watching the followers of "the Book" in their efforts to grow and learn, and identified with their mistakes and pride issues (how 'bout that Ra-Nufis character?) I can't quite decide whether I got better at reading symbols or just stopped worrying about them so much (and let them get away from me...) Good book on many levels.
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