Moonheart - Charles de Lint

When Sara and Jamie discovered the artifacts, they sensed the pull of a dim, distant place, a world of misty forests, ancient magics, mythical beings, ageless bards, and restless evil.

Now, with their friends and enemies alike—Blue, the biker; Keiran, the folk musician; the Inspector from the RCMP; and the mysterious Tom Hengyr—Sara and Jamie are drawn into this enchanted land through the portals of a sprawling downtown edifice that straddles two worlds.

This is my second Charles de Lint novel, and the second one I have been slightly disappointed in. de Lint, should be an author I love and I should want to read everything he has written, but something is missing that elusive little thing that moves an author from being someone whose work you can enjoy to someone whose works you devour.

Now, in this books case, I think it might come down to two things, firstly this was the audio version, and it’s a long ‘un! somewhere around the 19 hours mark. Not something that you can listen to in one or even half-a-dozen goes! and especially not concentrate on for that long, so naturally parts of it become ‘background’ noise that you drift off from.

And secondly, it gets seriously bogged down in the middle, I thought the first few chapters were very good, the characters likable, and the plot gently intriguing.

Then more and more characters were added, and plot strands woven in, and it started to muddy the waters somewhat, as much as I liked the character of Tucker, the inspector from the RCMP I could have done with out most of his story line, and allowed the story to concentrate more fully on the residents of Tamsin house.

Kudos has to be given to de Lint for not taking the obvious route of giving Sara and Keiran a romance together but the romances they did have I never 100% accepted.

I don’t want to give anyone the idea I did not like the book, I did, and de Lint does hold all the various plots together with some skill and resolves them all fairly well, and we do get a satisfying climax, but I just can’t get excited about his work like I would like to.

From what I’ve read, de Lint, is almost universally praised for his characters ‘feeling’ real and people who you would like to meet, and I have to say, the one thing I can take from his work so far is that, Tucker and Blue are both excellent characters for instance who I enjoyed immensely.

I do have a few more mooched books of his to go, and my next up is to finish his Dreams Underfoot collection and/or Memory and Dream, so hopefully one of them will be the one that does it for me.

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Other reviews to consider:

• Stuff as Dreams are Made on

[TT] Dreams Underfoot ~ Charles de Lint

There they sat on a stone wall, dangling their feet above the sluggish water. The night fell still.

The Dreaming Place ~ Charles De Lint

This book represent the first of my July Book Blowout challenge reads.

I’d not heard of De Lint before, but I came across a review of some of his books, over at Quixotical and I was intrigued enough to go and try find some of his work to read myself, and considering the focus of Quixotic’s reviews I thought the Newford books would be as good a place to start as any.

First to drop on my doorstep was The Dreaming Place, a young adult novel and the first in the series (although I believe De Lint actually recommends to read this second, after Dreams Underfoot: The Newford Collection.)

So, was it worth, digging out this new author? I think so. Just.

Nina, constantly finds her dreams interrupted, suddenly dreaming that she not only looking through the eyes of an animal, but finding herself <em>part</em> of that animal.

Her cousin, Ash, a grieving young woman locked in rage is seeking magic to fill a void.

We learn that Nina is being stalked by an otherworldly demon, and it is Ash who must overcome her own anger to learn the full power of magic, and save the faerie realm and her cousin.

I really wanted to enjoy this book and fall in love with the characters, as De Lint appears to be just the kind of author I’d enjoy, but all I can say is I did like the book, but nothing more than that really, it certainly had potential but it never seemed to quite catch hold and while the characters were very likable, particularly Cassie and Nina, I couldn’t bring myself to love them like I wanted to.

All in all a decent read, but I do feel it could have been so much better.

Has it put me off De Lint’s work? Not in the least. I’ve got a compendium and one of his longer Newford novels on the way, and there was enough evidence there to suggest that when I hit the right book I will fall in love with his writing and start to eat up anything I can find of his.

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Buy The Dreaming Place at Amazon