Jeff Wheeler (author of almost two dozen fantasy books including the Mirrowen trilogy and the Muirwood series) is set to release his latest book on April 1, the start of a brand new trilogy: the Kingfountain Series. A different kingdom in a different world, and a different direction for the successful fantasy author; this will be the first time he’s told a story from an eight-year-old boy’s point of view.
The Duke of Kiskaddon has betrayed the king. Never mind that he was trying to help overthrow a usurper; there are consequences for treason. The Duke has already seen his eldest son executed in retaliation, and now to protect the rest of his family he has to send another one of his sons to the court of Kingfountain to act as hostage to the notoriously bad-tempered King Severn.
Small for his age, quiet, and almost paralyzingly shy with adults, Owen Kiskaddon has to learn to survive court intrigues in a place where it’s widely understood that he’ll be killed the moment his parents step out of line again. He’s helped by the few friends he makes in Kingfountain: the kindly cook and her husband, the princess Elyse (daughter of the king that Severn overthrew), and the taciturn Duke Horwith. But to stay alive and try to change his parents’ fate he’ll have to rely on a person that many think died years ago, someone who’s true identity is a mystery, but who has a terrifying reputation: The Queen’s Poisoner.
This is the first time I’ve read one of Jeff Wheeler’s books, and I’m really enjoying his writing style. Everything is lovingly detailed, from the settings to the characters’ clothing. But the author doesn’t just drop in a wall of text to describe things, he paints them. The details unfold naturally, so you get almost cinematic views of a many-tiered castle on a forested hillside, or an underwater grotto in a cistern, or a secret cozy room at the top of a tower.
Wheeler has the same deft hand when describing the world he’s created here. There are a lot of things the reader has to be able to understand about the history and politics and magic/religion in the kingdom of Ceredigion; the author used historical events from fifteenth century England as some of the inspiration for the Kingfountain series. But none of the exposition is ever overwhelming, because he allows the reader to slowly discover most of it in easy-to-swallow pieces. It can be a little hard sometimes to keep track of all of the royal history (was that the first king we’re talking about, or or his successor, or his usurper? And when you say “uncle”, where does he fall in all of that?), but it helps that we see most of this from the point of view of 8-year-old Owen, who has a child’s understanding of a lot of this already. Although to survive he has to learn a lot more.
Owen himself is very wise for his age. He’s good-hearted, although still with a child’s tendency to be hurt and resentful that his parents chose him to be sent away to Kingfountain. He makes friends easily, but he’s terrified of speaking to adults he doesn’t know, especially people like King Severn, who tends to lash out verbally at everyone around him. That makes things tough for a quiet child who can happily spend hours in a corner of the kitchen carefully setting up tiles (think dominoes) in complicated patterns to knock down, much to the delight of the kitchen staff. (I loved that little detail about Owen. It’s so appealing, and who hasn’t wished that something we do to pass the time would have people talking about how clever we are?)
All of the characters have a lot of depth, and their own entertaining quirks. The chapter breaks are started with a journal entry by a character who has a healthy sense of his own ridiculousness (pay attention to how he signs off each entry). The Queen’s Poisoner come across as an almost saintly character, but one with a gentle sense of humor and some dark secrets. And King Severn is definitely not a nice person, but there are elements in his history that show all of the horrible choices he’s had to make, decisions that have slowly convinced him to become just as bad as everyone believed him to be in the first place.
My favorite character after Owen would have to be Duke Horwith’s granddaughter, who allows only Owen to call her Evie. That’s Elysabeth Victoria Mortimer, if you please. I thought when she was first introduced that she was going to be an annoying tagalong, someone to interfere with Owen’s plans, or maybe even tell on him every time she didn’t get her own way. But Evie’s anything but that; she’s fearless. She talks all the time, but she likes Owen from the moment she meets him, and she encourages him to be even more adventurous. Plus, she’s fiercely loyal, and she defends Owen with all of the confidence of a young lady of the court with an adoring grandfather, a noble upbringing, and sturdy leather boots.
“Mistress Mortimer, you get out of there!” Jewel shouted angrily, hobbling toward the fountain.
“My name is Elysabeth Victoria Mortimer!” she shrieked wildly at the old woman. Then she grabbed Owen’s belt and yanked him into the fountain with her.
The book takes place over just a few months, but Owen has to do a lot of growing up in that time. His only hope to save himself and maybe his family is to help the Queen’s Poisoner with a plan to convince King Severn that Owen is one of the Fountain-Blessed, a person with some kind of magical ability. And it has to be ability that will make the king decide that it’s worth his time to keep around a son of a traitor. It’s a plan that involves steel nerves, a good memory, and a least a little acting ability; that’s a pretty tall order for a boy who’s sometimes physically incapable of actually talking in front of grownups.
We’ve only just started Owen’s adventures by the end of the book. He’ll be several years older when we see him again, so the next book (due out May 31) will probably have fewer scenes of fountain swimming and pillow fights (oh my, the pillow fight scene in this book. I’m still smiling about that one) but Owen still has quite a few things to learn about the royal family of Ceredigion, and then try to find out which parts of their history are the truth and which are lies. And we still don’t know how the magic of the Fountain has affected him, so there will be more things to discover there. And most importantly, Evie decided pretty much on first sight that of course she and Owen would get married one day, so it’s going to be a lot of fun to see how that goes.