Clariel: The Lost Abhorsen

Gr 7 Up--Over a decade has passed since Nix's last Old Kingdom novel, Abhorsen (HarperCollins, 2003), but he has lost none of his skill in depicting this fantasy realm. Nix sets Clariel 600 years before his other Old Kingdom novels, in a time when the king is old and weary and the current Abhorsen prefers to hunt game rather than Free Magic creatures and necromancers. Clariel is a young woman who is close kin to both the King and the Abhorsen but with little knowledge of either. She has reluctantly come to the capital city of Belisaere with her mother, Jaciel, who has been declared a High Goldsmith. Clariel would prefer to roam free amongst the forest near her childhood home of Estwael and seeks any way to escape the odious city with its lifeless streets and political squabbles. Clariel's instructor in Charter Magic, Magister Kargrin, promises his help to leave the city in return for her aid in capturing a Free Magic creature that he believes is in league with Governor Kilp. Little does she realize the effect that the touch of the creature will have on her or the depths to which Kilp will stoop to assuage his ambition. Nix pens a compelling character in Clariel while his skill in rendering both politics and magic is strong. This excellent work can be enjoyed independently of the other Old Kingdom novels, but will certainly draw readers to those works.--Eric Norton, McMillan Memorial Library, Wisconsin Rapids, WI

In a prequel to his classic Old Kingdom series, set some 600 years before the previous novels, Nix introduces Clariel, the 17-year-old daughter of a supremely talented goldsmith mother. Clariel only wants to be left alone, "to become a Borderer, one of the wardens who patrolled the forests and woods of the kingdom," But unfortunately for her, she is also a close relative of the aging ruler of the Old Kingdom, as well as the Abhorsen, the kingdom's master of lawful Charter Magic, who must keep both the Dead and the Wild Magic in their places. Clariel soon becomes a pawn in the political machinations of both her mother and the ambitious guildmaster Kilp, who controls the capital city, Belisaere. Worse, she discovers that her occasionally violent temper may itself have dire (and magical) consequences for her future. Between striking characters--from the heroic if not entirely competent young Abhorsen-in-Waiting, Belatiel, to the enigmatic, catlike Mogget--and Nix's brilliantly complex magic system, this superb tale is exactly the book fans of the series have been awaiting. Ages 13-up. Agent: Jill Grinberg, Jill Grinberg Literary Management. (Oct.)