The end of The Wicked Heroine left Meena in a sticky place. We now discover how she gets out of it. Definitely one of the novel’s high points and humorous at that. If you are a proper young adult you will like the grossness of the scene (especially if you have a good imagination). “… his knife skittered against the blade of a short sword jammed up from below” on the bottom of page 3 sets the tone for the rest of Oathen. Jasmine writes grosse well – an excellent and important quality in an author.
Anjoya Meseer (Geret and Salvor’s language teacher) ends up leaving Salience with Count Runcan for Vint. The two of them have a surprise change of of transportation on the way. Anjoya turns out to be important to the political climate in Vint, so hurrah to her for taking a chance on a change in future.
Then we have the love-triangle/quadrangle of Geret, Sanych, Salvor and Rhona who travel with the returned Meena and the chased Gryme/Kemsil. Talk about messy love. I think this was the bit about Legend of the Shanallar that just didn’t do anything for me, but I am not really a romance reader and definitely not a YA one.
Did Oathen have action. I guess that is one way of putting it. Plenty of action and magic. All of them learn what they are made of and Meena finally gets her heart’s desire fulfilled. I think you could say that Oathen had a happy ending – at least for some of the characters. The others, well you learn to live with the choices you have made. Consequences can suck.
At times the story hiccupped, but that happens. Other than that Oathen was a great YA novel (I think, being 48 and all).
You can find 
at 
and 
.
My review of The Wicked Heroine
humanitysdarkerside 
One thought on “Giacomo, Jasmine: Oathen (Legend of the Shanallar) (2011)”