Heather Heffner
Autor de Year of the Wolf
Sobre El Autor
Créditos de la imagen: Heather Heffner
Series
Obras de Heather Heffner
Etiquetado
Conocimiento común
- Nombre canónico
- Heffner, Heather
- Género
- female
- Nacionalidad
- USA
- Ocupaciones
- Author
- Biografía breve
- HEATHER HEFFNER was born in Seattle, Washington, where she grew up being dragged along on ten-mile long hikes by her well-meaning parents. Luckily, her brother was forced to come, too, and they ended up storytelling to entertain themselves. Heather's never given it up since, and now can't think of anything better than sketching out an eight hundred-page epic (and maybe even go for a hike, after).
Heather is the author of the dark epic fantasy THE TRIBE OF ISHMAEL (Afterlife Chronicles I) about a boy who accidentally boards a train bound to Hell, and the urban fantasy YEAR OF THE WOLF (Changeling Sisters I) about a girl who faces off against the supernatural side of Seoul, South Korea. You can read all about her adventures, or more likely, misadventures, on her blog:
http://heatherheffner.blogspot.com/
Miembros
Reseñas
The war between the weres and the vampires grows in intensity and Citlalli is torn in how to proceed – does she obediently follow the were alpha’s plans, even as he keeps her in the dark? Does she join Rafael on his destructive quest for vengeance- but how many will die following his path? Or does she take a chance and run for her own priority – saving her sisters – even if it means meeting the vampire queen on her own turf?
While Raina continues her precarious existence in the vampire court. She has few – and decreasing – allies and an ever growing amount of enemies. She has forged an alliance with Khyber, the queen’s oldest son, but how sure can she be that she can trust him? But her own awareness of herself and her past may be giving her a whole new weapon to fight with
I don’t know whether it’s because of the gap between reading this book and the last book, but I found some elements of this book lost me. It’s just so huge, we have the supernatural world, the back story of the vampires, the nature of Citlalli’s many divided soul, different shapeshifter groups, magic and spirits and Uma and dark spirits and the Fox and the man’s lantern… it’s rare for me to want a recap but I would have appreciated here - a recap or more detailed explanation. Or maybe just a slightly slower pace
Because while the first book took a long time to get started, this book felt like we were plunged into the deep end and expected to run. In almost no time we go from reeling and adapting to the last book to throwing ourselves into the action of this one. The war is here, the plot against the vampires is coming to a head. Fights! Drama! High emotion! Conflict! It’s an excellent roller coaster of action and tension which just doesn’t give me much time to catch my breath and get my bearing as we’re pulled along. Just little things like the nature of spirit world, the identity of various ghosts, a reminder of the shapeshifter hierarchy, the nature of Maya’s many forms, Una’s role, maybe even a little time to get used to Raina and Citlalli’s differing POVs since Rain is changing so much.
At the same time there are elements of the plot that are distracted. Citlalli takes some time to spend with the lantern seller and I,m not entirely sure what it achieves (or how she’s able to magically divine his cure after such a brief meeting). We have the fox running around causing chaos that could probably be better served in a series of short stories – though it does serve to remind us that just because the vampires and Maya are the main enemy doesn’t mean they’re the only problem.
I think this rapid pacing, large number of characters and lots of action confuses me a little because the world is so wide and rich. There’s a lot of research, a lot of legends and a lot of work gone into building this world and incorporating so many different elements of mythology that we so rarely see incorporated into Urban Fantasy stories, making it very different from anything I’ve read before
I did like to see some humanising of Citlali’s mother – she’s often the harsh authority figure to be railed against and blamed. It’s nice to see more of her – her strictness covers her concern and genuine love. And her compassion – refusing to let Una live alone when she realises she has no parents. She’s strict, she has rules, but she also has a lot of love and a lot of hard history behind her
Similarly, Yu Li became more humanised. There’s still a lot of harshness to her and a lot of unnecessary and over the top conflict but there’s more motive and reason behind it to. She – and her son – have already lost one man who was vitally important to them, she worries about losing another and another father figure for her son. But also her relationship with Rafael is complex beyond Citlali – Rafael is obsessed about the war while she also wants to live – and for her child to live as well. It brings up a whole interesting side element about just how much the werewolves can be expected to give up and dedicate to this war against the vampires. Yu Li and Citlali do come together at the end with an excellent scene – and if there’s a third book I look forward to them being united and not at odds over a man.
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While Raina continues her precarious existence in the vampire court. She has few – and decreasing – allies and an ever growing amount of enemies. She has forged an alliance with Khyber, the queen’s oldest son, but how sure can she be that she can trust him? But her own awareness of herself and her past may be giving her a whole new weapon to fight with
I don’t know whether it’s because of the gap between reading this book and the last book, but I found some elements of this book lost me. It’s just so huge, we have the supernatural world, the back story of the vampires, the nature of Citlalli’s many divided soul, different shapeshifter groups, magic and spirits and Uma and dark spirits and the Fox and the man’s lantern… it’s rare for me to want a recap but I would have appreciated here - a recap or more detailed explanation. Or maybe just a slightly slower pace
Because while the first book took a long time to get started, this book felt like we were plunged into the deep end and expected to run. In almost no time we go from reeling and adapting to the last book to throwing ourselves into the action of this one. The war is here, the plot against the vampires is coming to a head. Fights! Drama! High emotion! Conflict! It’s an excellent roller coaster of action and tension which just doesn’t give me much time to catch my breath and get my bearing as we’re pulled along. Just little things like the nature of spirit world, the identity of various ghosts, a reminder of the shapeshifter hierarchy, the nature of Maya’s many forms, Una’s role, maybe even a little time to get used to Raina and Citlalli’s differing POVs since Rain is changing so much.
At the same time there are elements of the plot that are distracted. Citlalli takes some time to spend with the lantern seller and I,m not entirely sure what it achieves (or how she’s able to magically divine his cure after such a brief meeting). We have the fox running around causing chaos that could probably be better served in a series of short stories – though it does serve to remind us that just because the vampires and Maya are the main enemy doesn’t mean they’re the only problem.
I think this rapid pacing, large number of characters and lots of action confuses me a little because the world is so wide and rich. There’s a lot of research, a lot of legends and a lot of work gone into building this world and incorporating so many different elements of mythology that we so rarely see incorporated into Urban Fantasy stories, making it very different from anything I’ve read before
I did like to see some humanising of Citlali’s mother – she’s often the harsh authority figure to be railed against and blamed. It’s nice to see more of her – her strictness covers her concern and genuine love. And her compassion – refusing to let Una live alone when she realises she has no parents. She’s strict, she has rules, but she also has a lot of love and a lot of hard history behind her
Similarly, Yu Li became more humanised. There’s still a lot of harshness to her and a lot of unnecessary and over the top conflict but there’s more motive and reason behind it to. She – and her son – have already lost one man who was vitally important to them, she worries about losing another and another father figure for her son. But also her relationship with Rafael is complex beyond Citlali – Rafael is obsessed about the war while she also wants to live – and for her child to live as well. It brings up a whole interesting side element about just how much the werewolves can be expected to give up and dedicate to this war against the vampires. Yu Li and Citlali do come together at the end with an excellent scene – and if there’s a third book I look forward to them being united and not at odds over a man.
Read More… (más)
Citlalli and her family have come to South Korea to join their mother after their oldest sister, Marisol, disappeared after slowly weakening over a long period.
In Seoul they face many difficulties acclimatising and fitting in with the culture around them – and they have not achieved the safety they sought. Raina, Citlalli’s sister starts to fall prey to the same symptoms as Marisol
Desperate not to lose another sister, and frustrated by medicine’s inability to cure her, Citlalli pursues more and more mystical avenues to find an answer – and finds far more than she imagined. Ghosts and spirits, creatures of legend – and vampires, slow, life draining vampires and their enemies, the werewolves.
She’s in over her head and she needs to learn quickly – but Citlalli is determined that the vampire queen will not take another of her sisters, no matter what she must do to stop her.
When this story started I found it incredible disjointed and confusing. The chronology moves back and forth – we see Citlalli in the past coming to South Korea interspaced, lots of flashback that has happened to her and her family interspaced with the present. They’re not clearly labelled, we don’t always know if we’re in the past or the present and I found it extremely confusing and really not to my taste. It was a real pain for me and there was a moment when I nearly put the book down because it was too much work to follow it.
This part of the book also coincides with a very long preamble to the story. There’s foreshadowing to the supernatural, but it is just foreshadowing and it feels like an extremely long run up to the actual meat of the story. It’s frustrating and, again, made it a hard book to get into and tempted me to stop.
But once you get past that original barrier, the book opens up considerably. Not only does it improve, but it improves sufficiently that it is more than worth battling past that beginning shakiness, because it opens up into a truly original and excellent story that is definitely worth a read.
The story itself draws heavily on Korean mythology and elements of east-Asian mythology and beliefs. I can’t venture to say how accurate it was or how well it got it or how much different traditions were mixed up – or even what were western inserts – because I’m not nearly well versed enough to make that judgement. I will say that there was a sense of considerable research- places were named, streets were named, areas were referred to, there was a lot of use of the Korean language (and the little I knew seemed accurate, same goes to the relatively small elements of mythology I recognised) but all of this comes from a place of profound ignorance on my part. I can’t say if it was authentic, only that there was a definite amount of research going on.
Read More… (más)
In Seoul they face many difficulties acclimatising and fitting in with the culture around them – and they have not achieved the safety they sought. Raina, Citlalli’s sister starts to fall prey to the same symptoms as Marisol
Desperate not to lose another sister, and frustrated by medicine’s inability to cure her, Citlalli pursues more and more mystical avenues to find an answer – and finds far more than she imagined. Ghosts and spirits, creatures of legend – and vampires, slow, life draining vampires and their enemies, the werewolves.
She’s in over her head and she needs to learn quickly – but Citlalli is determined that the vampire queen will not take another of her sisters, no matter what she must do to stop her.
When this story started I found it incredible disjointed and confusing. The chronology moves back and forth – we see Citlalli in the past coming to South Korea interspaced, lots of flashback that has happened to her and her family interspaced with the present. They’re not clearly labelled, we don’t always know if we’re in the past or the present and I found it extremely confusing and really not to my taste. It was a real pain for me and there was a moment when I nearly put the book down because it was too much work to follow it.
This part of the book also coincides with a very long preamble to the story. There’s foreshadowing to the supernatural, but it is just foreshadowing and it feels like an extremely long run up to the actual meat of the story. It’s frustrating and, again, made it a hard book to get into and tempted me to stop.
But once you get past that original barrier, the book opens up considerably. Not only does it improve, but it improves sufficiently that it is more than worth battling past that beginning shakiness, because it opens up into a truly original and excellent story that is definitely worth a read.
The story itself draws heavily on Korean mythology and elements of east-Asian mythology and beliefs. I can’t venture to say how accurate it was or how well it got it or how much different traditions were mixed up – or even what were western inserts – because I’m not nearly well versed enough to make that judgement. I will say that there was a sense of considerable research- places were named, streets were named, areas were referred to, there was a lot of use of the Korean language (and the little I knew seemed accurate, same goes to the relatively small elements of mythology I recognised) but all of this comes from a place of profound ignorance on my part. I can’t say if it was authentic, only that there was a definite amount of research going on.
Read More… (más)
Heffner builds an extremely strong and powerful character while maintaining a softness that would seem illogical in the face of the life she's been forced to lead by environmental elements. This is a character who purposely gets lost on the streets of Seoul the first day she's there. Heffner poses this character to face incredible odds and imbues the reader with the sense of confidence in that she may not succeed but she will certainly do all she can to try. The connection that the author builds between Citalli and her sister Raina is poignant. Raina has been an outcast of sorts in the family as she's the product of an affair. The sisters adore each other and as we get to know the duo, we know that nothing will stop Citalli when it comes to the well being of her sister.
The Korean legends as passed to Citalli and intertwined with the story are fascinating and set the story above those novels that are similar. An aura of mystique and danger is intertwined in the idea that these other worldy happenings and the sickness that Marisol and now Raina experienced are common place in their society. It's almost viewed as a punishment for nebulous wrongs. When you have a terrible bad invading your culture you find what can be done to prevent that bad from spreading. "The Year of the Wolf" is a very relatable tale in the sense that wrongs happen and the way to stop them from happening is seeking the source and destroying it - if the source can be destroyed.
I had only a few issues with the work presented in "Year of the Wolf." Heffner's POV transitions left something to be desired. The shift between Citalli and Raina was jarring in such a way where I had to go back read a few pages to catch on to what had just happened. I also thought, and this may sound crazy, that Raina was simply too nice. She was the fairy tale princess of the story in a lot of places. The girl has been through a great deal and has clearly been treated cruelly by other people in her family for much of her young life as she's a result of her mother's infidelity. In the end, her sweetness didn't matter but I would have understood had she been an angrier character and had Citalli still loved her despite birds not landing in her hair and helping her clean toilets (that didn't happen in the story, just setting the visual picture).
While urban fantasy isn't generally a genre to which this reader would gravitate, I enjoyed "Year of the Wolf." Heffner's first novel is engrossing and, I'm sure, her writing has only gotten better. If you like fantasy with a strong real world base, pick this one up today.… (más)
The Korean legends as passed to Citalli and intertwined with the story are fascinating and set the story above those novels that are similar. An aura of mystique and danger is intertwined in the idea that these other worldy happenings and the sickness that Marisol and now Raina experienced are common place in their society. It's almost viewed as a punishment for nebulous wrongs. When you have a terrible bad invading your culture you find what can be done to prevent that bad from spreading. "The Year of the Wolf" is a very relatable tale in the sense that wrongs happen and the way to stop them from happening is seeking the source and destroying it - if the source can be destroyed.
I had only a few issues with the work presented in "Year of the Wolf." Heffner's POV transitions left something to be desired. The shift between Citalli and Raina was jarring in such a way where I had to go back read a few pages to catch on to what had just happened. I also thought, and this may sound crazy, that Raina was simply too nice. She was the fairy tale princess of the story in a lot of places. The girl has been through a great deal and has clearly been treated cruelly by other people in her family for much of her young life as she's a result of her mother's infidelity. In the end, her sweetness didn't matter but I would have understood had she been an angrier character and had Citalli still loved her despite birds not landing in her hair and helping her clean toilets (that didn't happen in the story, just setting the visual picture).
While urban fantasy isn't generally a genre to which this reader would gravitate, I enjoyed "Year of the Wolf." Heffner's first novel is engrossing and, I'm sure, her writing has only gotten better. If you like fantasy with a strong real world base, pick this one up today.… (más)
Estadísticas
- Obras
- 4
- Miembros
- 13
- Popularidad
- #774,335
- Valoración
- 3.6
- Reseñas
- 4
- Favorito
- 1
But there’s another struggle looming – the cursed Vampyre Prince Khyber has come to Hawai’i with a mission: he wants to die. And the keys to doing so lie in recruiting Tica to the fight to protect Hawai’i and the spirit world from desperate spiritual attack.
This book did an excellent job of filling in a few of the gaps – there are characters I read about in Year of the Tiger that I felt had a lot going on that I had missed. Which was true – but the elegance of the series is that I didn’t need to know Rafael’s backstory to understand Year of the Tiger, the battles that were fought or why Rafael felt the way he did. It was clear that Rafael had a major life above and beyond what Citlali saw, and that wasn’t a bad thing
Which is something else this story does excellently, we continue the whole metaplot of The Changeling Sisters series but also get to exp
I think, perhaps, this would have been improved without the focus on Khyber, to be honest. I think it would have been better served with a less involved vampire – or even no vampires at all (do the taking over dark spirits need the direct vampire presence to be an issue?). It would have done better at giving the idea that this is a battle across the globe with different warriors struggling against them. It would expand the universe.
But it still did expand that – because Khyber was pretty much unnecessary to the main plot of this book which was definitely, overwhelmingly Tica’s story. Which I also love because it sets another champion up who is every bit as awesome as Citlali
And Tica is awesome. She’s passionate and determined. She isn’t perfect and definitely has some painful, difficult moments with her friends and certainly with her mother. But she’s extremely knowledgeable and tough and faces both personal battles, accepts the vastness of the supernatural and absorbs and adapts to it well.
Her story is really well written, excellently paced as it matches development of her character and the world, her difficult, painful relationships, her very painful struggle as well as the action involved in fighting to save the spirit world and fight off the dark spirits (and the dark Spirits of Plague are horrendous – and much better villains than the vampires that seem almost clumsily inserted to the rest of this awesome story) as well as a lot of Hawai’ian mythology
This book has a large number of Hawai’ian deities and spirits, especially Poli’ahu, one of the goddess of snow, being majorly involved. Kamapua’a being intimately involved with Tica’s story and the story of Nanaue being fundamental to this overall story with Mo’o playing a vital role at every stage. I especially like that these were allowed to exist and explore and be the prime actors in the story without them being minor characters in a larger plot and world. While it’s clear in other books there are other deities and legends, here, in Hawai’i, the Hawai’ian deities are the centre of this story, they are the powers, they are the ones who are important here. These legends are the ones that are going to absorb every part of this book, they’re going to be the ones who will be important here and be part of every plotline.
I’m not going to say how awesome this is. It looks awesome. It look well researched. It looks well made. It looks really awesome. So say I, a man who has never been to Hawai’i and am not going to remotely claim remotely to know the slightest thing about Hawai’ian mythology. I’m not going to say this is awesomely researched because of this: it feels like a lot’s there but I can’t say I know enough to know the author hasn’t created this. I don’t think they did but still.
I do like the way the story ends because it’s complicated. It is kind of Bitter-Sweet happily ever after, it’s not all fun and happy; it’s layered, powerful, sad but strong. I like it, I appreciate the complexity and levels to it and the lack of shiny, simple, everything-is-perfect ending
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