Rating: 
Summary: Far from exceptional, but good.
Review: The Lark and the Wren is the first of Mercedes novels that I have read and now cannot stop reading her work. Everytime I see a Mercedes Lackey book I have to buy it. The Lark and the Wren is a true inspirational story of how one can find and fulfill ones dreams if there heart is really in it!
Rating: 
Summary: Perfection
Review: The Lark and the Wren is the first of Mercedes novels that I have read and now cannot stop reading her work. Everytime I see a Mercedes Lackey book I have to buy it. The Lark and the Wren is a true inspirational story of how one can find and fulfill ones dreams if there heart is really in it!
Rating:
Summary: Far from exceptional, but good.
Review: The Lark and the Wren was the first Mercedes Lackey novel I've read, and while it didn't leave me enthralled, it wasn't bad. Rune is a very real character, and while the story line is very typical, Lackey puts a personal spin on it, her world is cliched, but interesting. I found the relationship between the free bards and the courtly Bard/Minstrels to be the best part of the plot, being a musician of alto sax, piano, viola, and voice, I can appreciate the desire to shun the bards who play for money...not because they love it. The very proof of how the best music is played through the fingertips or voice of some one who loves it, is that the supposed "best bard ever" Talaysen, quit the honorable, sheltered, guild life to start the Free Bards.Characters besides Rune, Talaysen, and Robin are very two-dimensional, and always do exactly what you expect them to. This is a problem that many fantasy novels fall prey to, so I was not disappointed, just not impressed. Every plot needs a little romance, people are obsessive about love in all its facets, this is not a bad thing, it just makes for crudeness and tackiness (oh, glorious eloquence :p). Such was the case of the romance of Rune and Talaysen. I have read age gap romances before, an example of a very good one would be in Tamora Pierce's Daine and Numair, (which is for younger readers, but I'm only 14) because they didn't immediately jump into nuptial bliss, one afraid that the other would wake up and find her a little girl, the other afraid she would wake up and find him an old man. Now, L&W tries to do this, it just fails miserably. Why? Because though they do have doubts before their torrid love affair, they suddenly disappear to make the plot more convenient for a very odd subplot with a unacknowledged prince...and well, I understand it's there to build up to the second book, but really. In fact, there were many off-topic plot lines that never did get quite resolved. Of course, many authors have all these ideas in their head about what they want to write, that it's difficult to get them all down in an organized fashion. However, this was a fun, simple, one-time read.
Rating:
Summary: Suffers from Lackey's greatest failing...
Review: This book is set in an interesting world and has a reasonable plot, like so many of Lackey's books. Rune is a character that a lot of girls will identify with. The problem is that Lackey's villains are two-dimensional -- cardboard. This has been a signature of her novels. Her heroes have finally evolved into "real" people (c.f. Arrows of the Queen). I hope her villains follow soon
Rating: 
Summary: What happened?
Review: This book started out good, if not great. It was a light, enjoyable read. The endless cliches in the villains, the plot, and the setting didn't detract too much from the reading. Cardboard characters and cliched settings can be ignored. Rune wasn't a bad character, and it was interesting watching her struggle for survival in a city. If it hadn't been for the second half of the book, I would have given it 4 out of 5 stars. Then, Rune goes in with the Free Bards. Why did Lackey include this? She could have easily wrapped it up there. It was a struggle to read through the rest -- Lackey kept throwing in new plot points that had -nothing- to do with the first part of the book, or with each other. None of it was connected at all. She could have cut out the last half of the book and made for an enjoyable read -- but, sadly, she didn't. It seemed as if she had to meet a minimum length for her book and, when her original idea wasn't long enough, she threw in more and more, until she had a long enough book. Was there any connection, any point, to the last half of the book? If so, I'm missing something. Overall, The Lark and the Wren does -not- get a stamp of approval.
Rating: 
Summary: Two books in one
Review: This is a long, complex story which the author could have split into two books. The first part of the novel introduces Rune (the Lark), the ... daughter of an innkeeper's second wife, who escapes from the inn to become a traveling musician and to try her luck at gaining admission to the Bardic Guild. A series of adventures brings her to an ill-fated trial with the Guild and her introduction to the Free Bards. Part of this was published separately as a short story. The second part of the novel deals with the Free Bards, and travels with Talaysen (Master Wren) as a free bard. Additional characters are gradually introduced including a new apprentice with an unexpected background. The novel is the first in the series about the Free Bards, and sets the stage at the end for the following novel. It is helpful to read the series of novels in the order written as characters from one novel reappear in following novels.
Rating:
Summary: Two books in one
Review: This is a long, complex story which the author could have split into two books. The first part of the novel introduces Rune (the Lark), the ... daughter of an innkeeper's second wife, who escapes from the inn to become a traveling musician and to try her luck at gaining admission to the Bardic Guild. A series of adventures brings her to an ill-fated trial with the Guild and her introduction to the Free Bards. Part of this was published separately as a short story. The second part of the novel deals with the Free Bards, and travels with Talaysen (Master Wren) as a free bard. Additional characters are gradually introduced including a new apprentice with an unexpected background. The novel is the first in the series about the Free Bards, and sets the stage at the end for the following novel. It is helpful to read the series of novels in the order written as characters from one novel reappear in following novels.
Rating:
Summary: The Start of an obsession
Review: This is the first Mercedes Lackey book I read, and since reading it, I've gone out and bought at least 20 more of her books. Entertaining and absorbing; I got sucked into the story line and couldn't put the book down. I highly recommend this book to all fantasy lovers!
Rating:
Summary: ** The story of a bardic heroine **
Review: This is the story of a struggling young woman who started out with nothing. An immoral mother, and hateful ridicule from the village. I strongly admire the character Mercedes Lackey built up in Rune. She does an excellent job of pulling all of the details in a persons being together-strengths and faults- and created an almost tangable character. This book was also interesting because of the knowledge and beauty of music that was intertwined. Truly a symphony of character and fantasy!
Rating:
Summary: Sesame Street is more stimulating.
Review: This is without a doubt one of the worst books I have ever read. How anyone can think this is good is beyond me. For those skeptics out there I give you an example of Lackey's "fine" prose: "He didn't understand half of what she said to him, sometimes." (page 20) And that's just one example out of literally thousands. Infantile and just plain bad.
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