The House of the Four Winds (One Dozen Daughters, #1)

by Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory

[jnikkir]

This review can also be found at my blog, There were books involved...

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This book was fun. I'm a huge fan of nautical, pirate-y adventures, and in that aspect, The House of the Four Winds definitely delivers. It's fast-paced, and chocked full of everything a pirate adventure needs - storms, swordfights, sea monsters... If you're looking for a book with a seriously awesome "swashbuckling"/sailing-the-high-seas atmosphere, you can't go wrong with Four Winds.

However, for me, Four Winds fell short in... well, sort of, everything else...? =S I would still recommend it if you're in the mood for a lighthearted nautical adventure, but maybe also when you're in the mood to not dissect a book too closely, either...

The Characters

The main characters - Clarice and Dominick - were pretty good. Clarice is the most well-developed, being the narrator, and I liked her a lot. She's smart, fierce, and not afraid to fight for what she wants. That being said, she didn't really have much depth to her, either. What you see is what you get, really - at least, for the reader. It's a different story for everyone else, who thinks Princess Clarice of Swansgaard is really Clarence Swann. ;) Dominick is... sweet? a really good guy? I liked him, but again, other than details of his history, he's pretty much what he appears to be. A stand-up Englishman (or, this series' version of English, I guess). He's got a bit of a tragic backstory, takes most things in stride, and loves sailing. Nothing terribly earth-shattering, but enjoyable.

The Romance

As for the romance... well, I was decidedly underwhelmed. The blurb says that the authors "bring romance to the fore" in this book, but I didn't feel it. I can't say too much about Clarice and Dominick without giving away when Dominick finds out about Clarice (spoilers!). But disregarding the 'when', I never felt real chemistry between the two, either before, from Clarice, or after Dominick finds out, from either of them. Clarice tells us that she's falling for him, but once things transition into the "it's more than friendship" stage for her, I had a hard time believing it. And once Dominick finds out she's a girl, it's sort of an immediate "okay obviously we're in love now", which felt odd. That said, their friendship, pre-Dominick-finding-out, is wonderful. I really, really liked their... bromance? :P They made an awesome team, and it was nice to see two characters just have an easy friendship for once (minus Clarice's eventual Feelings).

The Plot

The plot was okay - though I do feel a bit misled by the synopsis, which says that Dominick leads his crew in search of treasure in the House of the Four Winds (the secret pirate haven). Their motivation in going to the House of the Four Winds is decidedly not treasure. Basically - the crew mutinies and kills their horrible captain, they have to sail Somewhere in order to actually survive, and they're lucky to make it to the House of the Four Winds. After that, they run into the sorceress Shamal, who decides that she needs Dominick for Reasons, and she drags him and Clarice/Clarence and their crew on a Quest. (At that point there's spoilers, so I'll stop.) Anyway, this was definitely a case of, "Where's the driving plot behind all this stuff? Is it really just the character arcs? Because these characters aren't strong enough for this." Basically I just felt like, after the mutiny, everything just happened to the characters, as obstacles for the sake of some excitement.

 
In conclusion...

There are a few other issues I had with the believability and convenience of certain events (disregarding that this this a fantasy), but I don't want to get into that too much here. Despite its flaws, this book is fun! It had all the scaffolding to make for a fun pirate story, but you can't wiggle the supports too much, otherwise it starts to fall apart. (Please forgive the building metaphor, construction is not my thing! :P)

Also, I'm not sure why this book isn't being marketed as YA, because it definitely felt appropriate for a YA audience, and might actually be a bit too... I don't know, tame(?) for Mallory's and Lackey's usual adult audience? I don't think there's anything in it that would prohibit it from being sold in the YA section, maybe as 14+. This might be another reason I was a little underwhelmed with this 'adult' title - there wasn't any grittiness to it. It really was like the synopsis says, a "swashbuckling", "charming", "lighthearted fantasy romp", and that's pretty much it.

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There were books involved...