ESME'S GIFT
Esme Series, Book Two
by Elizabeth Foster
Odyssey Books
YA Fantasy
266 page
In the enchanted world of Aeolia, fifteen-year-old Esme Silver is faced with her hardest task yet. She must master her unruly Gift – the power to observe the past – and uncover the secrets she needs to save her mother, Ariane.
In between attending school in the beguiling canal city of Esperance, Esme and her friends – old and new – travel far and wide across Aeolia, gathering the ingredients for a potent magical elixir.
Their journey takes them to volcanic isles, sunken ruins and snowy eyries, spectacular places fraught with danger, where they must confront their deepest fears and find hope in the darkest of places. Esme’s Gift, the second installment in the Esme trilogy, is an enthralling fantasy adventure for readers 12 years and over.
MY TIDBITS
Esme returns to her home to find her father almost broken thanks to her mother's and her own latest dissappearances, but instead of finding hope of rebuilding what was lost, she faces even more dismal circumstances. Her step-mother is in control and is using her father much more than Esme first suspected. But when Esme approaches her father, he refuses to listen to her and wants her hauled off to the psychiatrist like her mother was. Esme escapes and is forced to try to figure out how to wake her mother from the coma on her own. But time is ticking and Esme hasn't even started to dig into the world of magic which awaits her.
This is such a well-written book! I did read the first one in the series and was looking forward to continuing the adventure. There's more character depth and a smoother, more enticing tension in these pages than there was even in the last book. Esme has grown, but still has a lot to learn. She's down-to-earth and although some decisions are a bit risky, it's understandable why she does what she does. It's hard not to get lost in this book as she battles not only to discover a way to help her mother but find the path to discovering herself.
From the first chapter, I was hooked. The opening scenes with her return home and meeting with her father pull at the heart strings, while adding the disturbing sense that evil lurks nearby. It's hard not to feel her desperation, hope and doubt as she comes up against all sorts of unexpected hurdles. It's nice that she doesn't have to tackle everything alone but has golden friends. And it's this ray of light which makes the darker moments so much fun to read. I can't wait to dive into the next book and see what Esme is up against next.
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