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A review by mellhay
Lord of the Changing Winds by Rachel Neumeier
4.0
Kes is up in the woods collecting herbs for her stock when she spies the Griffins flying in the distance, and is distracted by their beauty. After Kes returns home to her sister Tesme and their helper Jos, she goes into the small village with her sister to celebrate the birth of magnificent horse of Tesme's. While there a man comes looking for Kes, asking for her help. Kes realizes something different about this man, that he must have a connection to the griffins by what she sees and feels. Kes willingly goes with this man and learns she can heal griffins, without her herbs.
The countries have divided themselves by the people and their abilities. The setup of these abilities, or different magic’s, is started in this book as you learn a little about all of them and more of a few special ones. The abilities are categorized as; Makers, Legists, and Animal Affinity. Then there are Mages present as well; earth, cool, and fire. And they all have a strange affect on each other. But Kes is about to learn a wondrous secret of herself...
There are no mysterious turns to the story, this story is a solid fantasy style read. I enjoyed reading the beauty drawn through words of the griffins and learning of them as the story went on. In the first 100 pages I only felt for Bertaud and of his friendship with the King. I wanted to connect with Kes and the griffins, yet they seemed... standoffish. But, somewhere between 125 and 200 pages something happened, and I feel for Kes and the griffins and started to understand more of their personalities. I think part of the connection I didn't feel was because I didn't trust the Griffin Mage. I didn't like him in the first half of the story, but I came to understand him in the second half, and even start to like him in the end. I think the author wants you to not trust Kairaithin along with finding it harder to connect with him and the griffins. I started to realize it may be part of their nature since they are creatures of fire. But in the end I accepted them for who they are and liked them.
The only thing about the read I had a hard time with were the names of the griffins. It was hard for me to keep them separate at first as the names were rather long and similar to each other, example: Eskainiane Escaile Sehaikiu. What did help was the author did usually give a description of the griffin by color with the names to help differentiate them, and after giving them nicknames I started to do well with them.
After reading this book, I am curious to see where the rest of the trilogy goes. In the end of the story I felt I started to understand what makes all the characters work and would like to read the next book to see where they all go and what falls upon them.
The countries have divided themselves by the people and their abilities. The setup of these abilities, or different magic’s, is started in this book as you learn a little about all of them and more of a few special ones. The abilities are categorized as; Makers, Legists, and Animal Affinity. Then there are Mages present as well; earth, cool, and fire. And they all have a strange affect on each other. But Kes is about to learn a wondrous secret of herself...
There are no mysterious turns to the story, this story is a solid fantasy style read. I enjoyed reading the beauty drawn through words of the griffins and learning of them as the story went on. In the first 100 pages I only felt for Bertaud and of his friendship with the King. I wanted to connect with Kes and the griffins, yet they seemed... standoffish. But, somewhere between 125 and 200 pages something happened, and I feel for Kes and the griffins and started to understand more of their personalities. I think part of the connection I didn't feel was because I didn't trust the Griffin Mage. I didn't like him in the first half of the story, but I came to understand him in the second half, and even start to like him in the end. I think the author wants you to not trust Kairaithin along with finding it harder to connect with him and the griffins. I started to realize it may be part of their nature since they are creatures of fire. But in the end I accepted them for who they are and liked them.
The only thing about the read I had a hard time with were the names of the griffins. It was hard for me to keep them separate at first as the names were rather long and similar to each other, example: Eskainiane Escaile Sehaikiu. What did help was the author did usually give a description of the griffin by color with the names to help differentiate them, and after giving them nicknames I started to do well with them.
After reading this book, I am curious to see where the rest of the trilogy goes. In the end of the story I felt I started to understand what makes all the characters work and would like to read the next book to see where they all go and what falls upon them.