A review by mdpenguin
The Heart of the Circle by Keren Landsman

adventurous emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

This was excellent in pretty much every regard except, perhaps, for the names. I understand that they changed the names for the translation to make it more accessible to anglophones, but it made it kind of drift out of its setting for me. I really liked how there were hints about how history was different for the existence of the sorcerers, e.g. the radioactive craters of Europe or the Confederacy. I thought that the general social issues affecting the sorcerers were well conceived and the social turmoil they were going through very believable. The personal drama of the protagonist and his friends along with the romance that developed were so well drawn and it was very easy to get lost in their social relationships and care about the well-being of each character and understand the tension between what needs to happen and what everyone would really want to happen. Really, everything about this we exactly what I'd want out of it...except the names.