The Noble of Sperath by Siera Maley

The Noble of Sperath by Siera Maley

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This book is the second one that I’ve read by this author. I had liked the first I’d read, had eyeballed some of the author’s other books but hadn’t tried another until just now.

The first book I’d read by the author was a cute young adult book set in a high school. A contemporary high school. This book here, The Noble of Sperath, is a fantasy set on a medieval like non-earth.

The book opens with the main character hearing people talking near her. She’s concerned because she doesn’t know who they are – or, for that matter, where she is. They continue talking. The main character continues to pretend to be asleep. Eventually one of the two voices leaves and the other stays nearby. Gradually this main character re-develops the ability to move. Which she does, slowly, carefully, until she stands near the strange man who apparently has captured her and put her in his (maybe his?) bed, and sets out to attack him.

There’s a reason why I use ‘main character’ and ‘she’ instead of using the character’s name. And no, it isn’t like normal wherein I just forgot her name. No, it is because ‘she’ has forgotten her name. For she has amnesia. She occasionally gets flashes from her past life (I should be careful using words like that in a fantasy – I just mean her pre-amnesia life), but otherwise doesn’t remember anything from that life. The two men who ‘found’ her also don’t know this character’s backstory either, though they know ‘who’ she is (complicated, eh? They don’t know her, but know her – more later). And here I used character instead of woman, young woman, or child because no one seems to know how old she might be. Though there is a belief that she is probably ‘older than she looks’. Which is ‘young woman’ age, but no specific age was given – until it was mentioned that she looked roughly around the same age as a princess (the princess) of Sperath, who just turned 18. So she could conceivably, she here still being the unnamed main character, be between the age of 13 to 23.

So how do the two men ‘know’ and ‘not know’ this main character? They know what she is, actually, just not who she was. For she is, now, the Seer. The person who will visit all 12 of the kingdoms that make up the Empire of Eveinia, choose 12 potential heirs, head off to another spot and ‘divinely’ choose the next Emperor.

Oh, and naturally everyone can’t just keep referring to her as nameless or something like that, so the main character chooses her own name. She decides to call herself after the most famous thief named Talia, so she calls herself Lia.

Lia is trained and then sets off on her quest with the younger of the two men who working with her (I’d get more exact with names but my digital book reader is dead). Her first stop – the kingdom of Sperath and specifically the same castle the princess lives in.

I wasn’t sure that I wanted to try yet another young adult book set in fantasy land, at least not right when I did try a sample but . . . shesh. I got sucked right in. Before I knew it I’d read something like 8% of the book. Which doesn’t really sound like a lot, but I had intended to just look at a few pages to see if I was going to get the book or not. I am rather glad that I did try this book.

Ah, my status update makes clear to me why I didn’t rate this book higher – initially, while I was easily pulled into the story and devoured the story, I didn’t actually specifically like the main characters (not as in not like the characterization, but not like the characters). That changed, but that was my first impression.

Two things to note: this has been called a young adult story, but it isn’t exactly clear how old the main character actually is, and everyone else involved are adults (well, the princess is 18 but she isn’t considered an young adult in this world, but an adult with responsibilities, like marrying and stuff (stuff including taking over the family business shortly after marriage – as in taking the throne of Sperath). And the second thing – romance stuff.

The first book I read by this author involved a straight girl and a . . . well, she might have been straight or bisexual, it wasn’t from her point of view so not sure – two possibly straight girls being assumed to be a couple, and so they run with it (for reasons) – lots of stuff about sexual orientation and stuff in that book). Here? Well the author seems to be playing with it – flirting with who her characters are and what their wants and needs are – the Princess has two rumors floating around her, and she doesn’t immediately refute either (one casts her as being ‘improperly’ attached to a man; the other has her ‘improperly flirteous (and possible more)’ with women. And the main character? Lia came off more like an asexual than anything else, possibly leaning towards being . . . I don’t know what the term is (like, I read a book involving an asexual biromantic, but am not sure what word to use for lesbianromantic).

Basically I’m saying that I’m not sure I’d call this young adult, nor lesbian fiction. This specific book here. Though there is a lesbian in the book.

I look forward to more books in this series. Eagerly.

Rating: 4.47

June 6 2017




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