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DaggerStar Epic of Palins Book 1 Elizabeth Vaughan Books

Download As PDF : DaggerStar Epic of Palins Book 1 Elizabeth Vaughan Books

DaggerStar Epic of Palins Book 1 Elizabeth Vaughan Books

And possibly, this novel is set centuries after the stories of Keir, Xylara and their cohorts. Magic is a well known and commonly used resource among the characters of _Dagger-Star_. Red Gloves, the protagonist of this novel is a mercenary of great skill, hot temper, and haunted past finds herself facing down mages, bandits, and odium (zombies, as near as I can discern) in her attempt to earn a profit and avoid the machinations of politically motivated allies and a particular prophesy.


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DaggerStar Epic of Palins Book 1 Elizabeth Vaughan Books Reviews

Book was slow at first but one I got past that I couldn’t put the book down. Can’t wait for the sequel
This story is so different from anything I read. So fresh. And this writer is amazing. So easy to read and follow the thoughts. Perfect amount of characters with easily distinguished characteristics.
DAGGER-STAR is exactly what it sets out to be a fast-paced, engaging fantasy with lots of sex and action, not necessarily in that order. Nowhere near as deep as Lord of the Rings or the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, this book follows the story of Red Gloves, a mercenary woman bearing a mark that makes her the prophesied savior of a kingdom, and her sword-sister Bethral. On her path to fulfilling her destiny, Red meets and starts a relationship of sorts with a goatherder, Josiah, who turns out to be more than he seems, as well as a cast of other distinctive characters including a priestess with the power of magic and a storyteller with a mysterious background.

After having just finished a book with a supposed "heroine" who took no action whatever and was completely passive throughout the whole story (THE SERPENT BRIDE), I was seriously looking for a book with strong women who set out to take charge of their destiny, and DAGGER-STAR fit the bill admirably. Red is the driving character of this entire book, and as a long-time, experienced, accomplished professionaL mercenary, her actions are completely believable for what she is supposed to be (unlike, say, Ishbel of THE SERPENT BRIDE, who was supposedly this stone-cold priestess of a death cult who could sacrifice a man by spilling his entrails without batting an eye, yet spent most of the book passively passed from man to man and angsting over her love life). The main problem I had with this book, however (and perhaps this is a feature of the type of story being told) was that the characters really never rose above two dimensions. Red is the stone-cold mercenary with a trauma in her past who wrestles over her growing feelings for Josiah. Bethral is her competent and stolid sword-sister. Josiah is the gentle goat-herder with a hidden strength. And so on. The main through-line (and it seemed pretty subsidiary to the rest of the plot) is Red's growing feelings for Josiah, but that feels almost like a grace note amid all the scenes of talking to barons, fighting, raising the new army, and so on.

Again, however, this book is pretty much the equivalent of a summer popcorn movie--you're there for the action and the sex, and you know that what character development there is will be pretty much by-the-numbers and incidental; after all, it's not really the point. I was primarily looking for a book with strong heroines, and DAGGER-STAR was exactly that. This book is the first in a series, apparently, and I will be continuing on to read the sequels.
I adore stories with medieval / fantasy women who wield swords. A friend of mine recommended I try Dagger-Star. It's set in a Lord of the Rings style fantasy world, complete with elves who make lighter-than-normal armor. In general I enjoyed the story and details.

Red is a woman with a troubled past. She and her female friend Bethral are out taking jobs as mercenaries when they run across the farm of Josiah, a man raising goats. Soon they're also rescuing a male slave and getting embroiled in the power struggle of the whole kingdom.

So, first, the good. They story got me hooked fairly early on. I liked that all the characters have their flaws. There isn't the "perfect-arms handsome strong" male encountering the "perfect-breast beautiful wise" woman. These people are definitely "real". They each have their own quirks and personalities.

Elizabeth Vaughan clearly did her research into horses. I think I saw more horse-detail in here than in any other medieval / fantasy book I've read in a long while. This also goes in the editing-needed category, though. It's the *secondary* character, Bethral, who was into horses. And Bethral is the focus of the third book in this trilogy. So all of that heavy-horse-info should have been trimmed out here and used fully in that book about the horse-woman. This book here is focused on the feisty-all-about-battle woman.

In addition to the horse-heavy content, many other issues should also have been edited. We have situations where two people are in a room, a line of dialogue is given without attribution, and we have no idea who said it. There are continuity issues with a person doing something, then doing it again. I'm not counting the times that we go between the minds of characters and time "rewinds" in between. The moving between characters is sometimes fairly clunky. The way chapters are broken is sometimes disconnected. Word use is sometimes not handled well. I am changing the context so I don't give away spoilers, but a sentence will read "Lisa's heart leaped to see the cat leap out." or "Jeff scowled. Lisa turned and scowled ..." It's one thing if it's done for effect, to mirror a situation. That is done several times and that's fine. But in other places it simply seems the author forgot she just used a certain word.

We go quite a way into the story before we have any idea at all what the heroine looks like. It makes it hard to have the story visualized in one's head while reading. If one went by the cover, they'd be completely wrong about a KEY item. On the cover, Red's birthmark is above her left breast, i.e. fairly easy to see in many outfits. But in the story it is clearly BELOW her RIGHT breast. It's part of why it's not noticed normally.

Some of the names of characters / places are a bit heavy handed. Blackhart? For a villain? There are also pacing issues. Some scenes which are minor are covered in great detail. Other scenes which are incredibly important, and which directly relate to the heroine's "area of interest", are completely skimmed over. We get far more details about horses - again, not her area of interest - and not that lovely detail about her fights. Instead we get generic "she hit him in the groin" types of comments.

Still, again, these are things that a good editor should have polished up for her. It can be hard for an author to catch some of these types of issues even on multiple re-reads. So I give the author great credit for the underlying story, and it's the editing team I fault for many of these problems.

I do have a final comment, and that is about the actual character traits of the four main characters. We have Red, a woman swordfighter, and Josiah, a farmer. We have Bethral, also a woman swordfighter, and Ezren, the slave she rescues fairly early on (I'm avoiding spoilers in my review, so this all is known fairly quickly). I am clearly all for alpha females ). I love stories with them. And I enjoy male characters of all shapes and styles. However, the two males here are EXTREMELY passive. It is one thing to be a calm, steady supporter. I definitely love males who fall into that category. But these males are passive to the point of flaccid. It's hard to give examples without giving spoilers, and I suppose it's already sort of a spoiler to say they are at the earthworm level of activity. I just don't find that appealing at all. I always want a partnership where each person is actively providing SOMETHING to the relationship (and not just sex!). This issue almost drags the review down to three stars for me - but I also accept that some readers might not mind how passive the men are. That issue is more of a "my personal attitude towards relationships" one and not a "poorly written one". She wrote Josiah, accurately, to be broken, weak, unsupportive, and unmotivated. That's the way he is. It's just not a guy I would ever have any interest at all in being with.

So in summary, if this had been edited well it could be a five star book that's perfect for readers who enjoy that type of super-beta male character. Even if it was edited well, though, it just wouldn't be a book I would personally want to re-read, because I don't find the draw of that type of character. So in the end it would depend on what type of male characters you enjoy reading about.
And possibly, this novel is set centuries after the stories of Keir, Xylara and their cohorts. Magic is a well known and commonly used resource among the characters of _Dagger-Star_. Red Gloves, the protagonist of this novel is a mercenary of great skill, hot temper, and haunted past finds herself facing down mages, bandits, and odium (zombies, as near as I can discern) in her attempt to earn a profit and avoid the machinations of politically motivated allies and a particular prophesy.