Ronlyn Domingue

Given a rare apprenticeship and tasked with charting her entire kingdom, young Aoife encounters a secretive culture of wealthy and peaceful people who she protects by enduring a harrowing exile. By the author of The Mercy of Thin Air.

Keeper of Tales Trilogy: Book One

The Mapmaker's War

Dorian Avers

** spoiler alert **
            I really liked this book, even though I'm not normally a fan of fantasy. The reason that I enjoyed this book so much is because the focus isn't on the world building or the unrealistic side of things, it's focus is on the people and our traumas and relationships. I think Aoife is a beautifully honest and flawed human being. I connected with her. She does not want to be what every other woman in her kingdom is expected to be. A mother and wife, nothing else, even if they express an interest in it. (Not that being only a mother or a wife in and of itself is a mundane or terrible thing, if the choice is there that's great, but when it is an expectation that is enforced, that's when it can be cruel). She is a mapmaker, the first female mapmaker. She is allowed to travel and express herself in her maps and envision and daydream. She mistakes lust for love when it comes to Wyl, the prince. He helps her achieve what she wants and accepts her career until she becomes pregnant and then she must become what every other women shall. She follows her heart and warns a neighboring settlement that the greed of her own kingdom will harm them and is labeled a traitor. She is imprisoned and eventually exiled. Her children, who she never loved must be left behind. She follows her gut to a settlement where she lives out her days. 
 I know that was a very bland and somewhat vague synopsis, but I just started writing and didn't stop. I write my reviews only because I want to come back and reread them if I've forgotten about a book, or just to mark what I thought at this point in time in case I reread something again. I thought Domingue started out very committed to a different writing style. Short, poetic sentences. A bit illustrative, yet interpretive, with some words in parallel lines |I don't know what this is called|. Her writing became more contemporary as she continued, but still beautiful. The only time I wasn't fully enjoying Domingue's writing was at the end of the novel when she is towards the end of her life and visiting the twins as a stranger. I felt like it was rushed. Otherwise, I enjoyed the pacing of the book. No one event was dwelled on too long. Problems were found, solved, and for the most part tucked away, maybe a little too neatly. 
 Before the novel began there is a translator's note that talks of this being a rare work of a language that was not thought to have a way of writing, especially by a woman author. I was a bit confused and thought I was about to read a book of nonfiction (who knows, maybe I did). I just now put together that this must be Aoife's work, but the translator signed off as S. Riven. Am I missing something?
 The genuinely good behavior of the people in the settlements, told me to breathe and try to stay calm and honest. The discussion between Leit and Wei about bringing the goodness of the settlement and it's ways to others versus preserving and protecting it was a valid and important one. I thought this book wrapped up nicely which is why I'm surprised to discover that it's the first of a trilogy. We traveled through like 70 years in this novel. 
 I really did enjoy this book and it's going in with my favorites. I don't know when I'll read the second one, but I'd like to eventually have all three on my bookshelf.

The Mapmaker's War Keeper of Tales Trilogy: Book One

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