The Girl from Two Worlds
Book One of the Albion Chronicles. Kariss has had a troubled childhood: her parents have been running away from something for most of her life, but she doesn’t know what. Then Kariss is left to fend for herself. She is attracted to an old woman and soon strange things start happening to her. Eventually, she wakes up one morning to find herself in a different world, one almost 2,000 years in the past. She discovers that she is heir to a throne, but has a rival – Martaani – who would reinstate the Roman gods to the land and now knows that Kariss has returned. The kings and druids protect Kariss, but for how long? Add to that, Kariss has problems in the present day as well.
This is a decent tale but just falls short of a high recommendation. We do not know Kariss’ age and must assume that she is perhaps eighteen, but not very much older. Every time she falls asleep she returns to the ‘other land’, be it Albion or London, so I felt the author has made a bit of a rod for her own back here and could have kept her in one place for a little longer instead of the hopping about.
The problem is eventually solved by Kariss, quite drastically, in fact. I would also like to have seen more detail about her life in the present day – her whereabouts in London, for example. Perhaps a slightly more evocative title?
There were some formatting issues in the edition I reviewed: the spacing between lines is incorrect and the font a little too small and quite faint to be read. A reformat and reprint would be of benefit.
