Realism and depth: Auralia's Colors by Jeffrey Overstreet #review by @thysilverdoe
Auralia's Colors
A Novel
(The Auralia Thread)
by Jeffrey Overstreet
Cover links to Amazon
Genre: Fantasy
When thieves find an abandoned child lying in a monster’s footprint, they have no idea that their wilderness discovery will change the course of history.
Guest Reviewer
Linda CrateFollow @thysilverdoe
Auralia’s gift opens doors from the palace to the dungeons, setting the stage for violent and miraculous change in the great houses of the Expanse.
Auralia’s Colors weaves literary fantasy together with poetic prose, a suspenseful plot, adrenaline-rush action, and unpredictable characters sure to enthrall ambitious imaginations.
Guest Review
The first thing I have to say about Auralia’s Colors is I originally thought it was written by a woman. I won’t lie, I didn’t even bother looking past the title and I dug into the book. It was beautifully sculpted prose that was so poetic and flowing that I thought only a woman could write this. Imagine my surprise, however, when I finally did look at the title and saw that it was written by a man — for I know no females named Jeffrey.
Secondly, I must admit that more people don’t know about this book. It is one of my absolute favorites because it is the most unique book I’ve read in the fantasy genre. It doesn’t have those stereotypical cliches that most fantasy novels do about a male hero off on some journey to battle some evil dudes. It’s about a mysterious girl named Auralia, who is an orphan raised by thieves. She later discovers that she has a forbidden talent for weaving colors that has the extraordinary ability to entrance all that see them even the hard hearted king of Abascar (the village of which she lives).
As Kathy Tyers says Jeffery Overstreet, ‘weaves myth and reality, hope and loss into his tapestry, and ties off The Read Strand with a cataclysmic flourish.’ I couldn’t agree more. The characters in this story feel so real — Auralia could be that goth artist in your classroom that everyone gives the hairy eye ball because she looks weird, but she draws very well and has a talent for art that you’ve never seen before. The characters do not act as characters but are three dimensional characters that serve as people. Real living people if they weren’t inhabiting the pages of a book. However, the realism in this book isn’t the only thing that drew me to it (in addition to the pure poetry of Overstreet’s writing).
Another thing that is drawing about the piece in addition to the realism is the depth of the book. He just doesn’t skim the surface of his universe he invents it with such scope that you can actually see, hear, and smell the setting. To conclude, it’s a very well written book and conceivably one of the best of the fantasy genre aside from Lord of the Rings or another underappreciated favorite of mine Death of a Dark Lord by Laurell K. Hamilton. If you haven’t read this book yet I would recommend that you do, you will not regret the journey you take when you step into this literary genius.
