lightreads: a partial image of a etymology tree for the Indo-European word 'leuk done in white neon on black'; in the lower left is (Default)
lightreads ([personal profile] lightreads) wrote2013-02-08 10:34 pm

The Lost Conspiracy by Francis Hardinge

The Lost ConspiracyThe Lost Conspiracy by Frances Hardinge

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Straight up, I'm not going to do this justice. It's so good in ways I'm still trying to fully articulate a week later.

It's young adult fantasy about post-colonialism. Also sisters, and secrets, and revenge, and people who can fling their senses hundreds of miles away, and ashes, and volcanic love triangles (Me: It has volcanic love triangles! My girlfriend: . . . Their love is so hot? Me: No, I mean there's three volcanoes. In a love triangle.)

It's a book that spends hundreds of pages teetering, teetering on the brink of ethnic cleansing, and it made me laugh. It is tight and accomplished and wrenching and wonderful and strange and smart as hell. And okay, one reason I'm not telling you about the actual story is I honestly don't know where to start.

So many of you guys are going to go nuts over this, and I can't wait.




View all my reviews
ecaterin: Miles's face from Warrior's Apprentice. Text: We have advanced to new and surprising levels of bafflement. (Default)

[personal profile] ecaterin 2013-02-09 11:51 pm (UTC)(link)
WOW. Sounds like a MUST READ :D Sounds really fresh - and that's a rare thing in YA and fantasy, indeed.