Kelly Coon

In the walled city-state of Alu, Kammani wants nothing more than to become the accomplished healer her father used to be before her family was cast out of their privileged life in shame.

When Alu's ruler falls deathly ill, Kammani’s beautiful little sister, Nanaea, is chosen as one of three sacred maidens to join him in the afterlife. It’s an honor. A tradition. And Nanaea believes it is her chance to live an even grander life than the one that was stolen from her.

But Kammani sees the show more selection for what it really is—a death sentence.

Desperate to save her sister, Kammani schemes her way into the palace to heal the ruler. There she discovers more danger lurking in the sand-stone corridors than she could have ever imagined and that her own life—and heart—are at stake. But Kammani will stop at nothing to dig up the palace’s buried secrets even if it means sacrificing everything…including herself. show less

Imagine you live from hand to mouth because your father wasn't able to save the ruler's son after a terrible fall. That failure resulted in your family, already in pain and disarray because your mother died giving birth, being stripped of rank, home and wealth, not to mention your younger brother being taken to the palace as a servant. Your dad, perhaps the most skilled healer in the city, now drowns his sorrow in a tavern every day while you try to hold things together by following in his show more footsteps as a healer, mostly for the poor living outside the city. With the death of the Lugal (the city's ruler) eminent, three maidens are to be chosen to accompany him to the netherworld where they will supposedly live a life of eternal ease and luxury. This is what healer in training Kammani faces, but things get worse very quickly. Her younger sister is chosen as one of the 'gravemaidens' and she knows the whole thing is a sham. Her sister, Nanaea, will die and soon, unless Kammani can do the impossible. That, for her means convincing the palace that her disgraced father can save the Lugal. However, once her plan is set in motion, things not only get much more complicated, she starts to realize that there are sinister forces at work and figuring out who to trust is very difficult.
This is a dandy first book with plenty of twists and hooks to grab teen fantasy lovers. I'm very curious as to how the author will wrap everything up in the sequel show less

I actually quite enjoyed this novel. Author Kelly Coon draws on real life records of human sacrifice in ancient cultures as an inspiration for her fictional village of Alu. A small place deeply steeped in its traditions. One of the oldest traditions being the use of favored maidens given in sacrifice who are poisoned or otherwise killed so that they may join a departed ruler into the Netherworld. Young Kammani, a healer in training, knows all too well there is no great honor in being show more sacrificed to accompany the recently departed into the afterlife. So when her 15 year old sister is chosen as a sacred maiden, she vows to do all she can to save the life of the ruler who has fallen so grievously ill. We are given a rich and detailed history of Kimmani’s life, and I was riveted by her treacherous journey into the high life of palace society. As an outsider whose family was disgraced, Kimmani risks everything to save the life of the man who threw their family out into the hovels and took her young brother as a palace servant in exchange for the life of the son her father could not save. While they live very different lifestyles from our own, we can all relate to wanting to save our own loved ones from suffering. There is also plenty of high drama and treachery to go around, looks like this is book one in a series, and I look forward to hearing more from the young, fearless Kammani. Thank you to Netgalley for the early copy. show less

I did like this book. The world that author, Kelly Coon created for this story is great. I instantly got a vivid picture of the world and the people. There are a handful of key characters. Although, I found the only one that really interesting was Kammani.

The three maidens including Kammani's sister were "sheep". They did not really think for themselves or were that interesting. The other characters were fine but had trouble in the beginning trying to keep them straight. They seemed similar. show more

Despite the fact that most of the characters were not that interesting, it was the pure factor of Kammani being on her "A" game and the magical world that this book took place in that had me keep reading. I do want to read the sequel. show less