Close Kin: Book II -- The Hollow Kingdom Trilogy

Clare Dunkle captures the very essence of the "make-believe" world. Her writings are a must read!

Our favorite characters are back for a second story, but under considerably different circumstances, obviously. Emily and Seylin take the center stage this time, though we do catch a glimpse of Kate and Marak. As to the plot... Emily is too busy baby-sitting goblin children for her old friend Seylin, who's rather lonely anyway, on account of his elvish looks (which, though very handsome, are out of place in an underground kingdom where the citizens often have claws instead of hands). And when he finally proposes, Emily, being occupied by utterly mundane things like spills and caramels, completely misunderstands him. So Seylin naively decides that he'll never fit in with the goblins, and gets Marak's permission to search for the elves, who are thought to be long-dead. Seylin actually finds an elf camp,but things are not at all how he expected. The leader, Thorn, is nothing more than a bully, and is especially vicious to Sable, a woman who's strangely scarred. Emily and Seylin were nice, but Sable and Tinsel really stole the show, as mentioned above. I think of them as the main characters, though the book is supposed to be about the former pair. Close Kin measures up to The Hollow Kingdom in every way; the only fault I can find with it is that it goes by too quickly!

I thought this book was great, it's my favorite in the series actually. The characters are so well developed, they all deepen from the first book, the story line is interesting, and I loved how everything came together so smoothly. As I've said about the first book, I wouldn't recommended this series for younger readers or for sensitive people, but if you don't mind a bit of darkness (an elf girl slashes her face at the beginning of the book to make her unwanted to her fiance because all elven woman die in childbirth and there is some cruelty to woman in the book) I would highly recommended this series.

After reading the first book to the Hollow Kingdom Trilogy I was somewhat dissapointed by this one. Don't get me wrong, it is a good read through and through but holding it up to the first one and you'll find it's a star lacking. Since I'm not the type to tell you it's lacking and not the reason why, I'll explain myself. The dark ending to Close Kin showed way to much into the third book. Dunkle really should have waited to put that last chapter in there. It showed way to much, it was like the beginning of a book instead of the end. Emily's character needed abit more developing. She seemed way too immature to be getting married and that put me off abit. Seylin was brilliant! The best character of all. Dunkle really poured her heart into him. Not only was his character filled out and expanded from the first book but she added new insights to his personality that were simply delightful. The elves also were a special treat. Dunkle made their history so hauntingly sad, and their current state was almost pitiful, yet through it all they still retained a sense of themselves. Kate and Marak were the same, happily so, I couldn't have stood it had Dunkle changed them an atom from what they were before. I especially loved her addition of the goblin child Emily finds in England. That was very fun! The only thing good about Dunkle's foreshadowing ending was that it portrayed Catspaws personality in such a good way. I really think the third book is going to top everything off. Overall I recommend Close Kin strongly, albeit it has a few minor flaws.

Clare B. Dunkle returns to the world of "The Hollow Kingdom" with "Close Kin," a romantic adventure that stretches the boundaries of her invented world. Though this book is a bit too rushed, Dunkle's mix of humor and suspense carry the story smoothly as we find out a bit more about the mysterious elves. Seylin the elf-goblin has been Emily's friend ever since she came to live with the goblins, and he has now fallen in love with her. When she absentmindedly rejects him, the brokenhearted Seylin decides to go find other elves. He manages to track down a camp of them -- but he finds that they have little in common. The band leader is a brutal thug, the elves live in poverty, and the women are treated as scum... and all elf women die horribly in childbirth. Meanwhile, determined to find Seylin, Emily sets out accompanied by a crabby loremaster. Both she and Seylin discover the tragic joint past of the elves and goblins, and the terrible secret that is driving the elves toward extinction. "Close Kin" takes a darker tone than its predecessor. Sure, "Hollow Kingdom" wasn't light and fluffy, but "Close Kin" explores the terrible aftermath of wars and misunderstandings. One scene even has an elf woman mutilating her face so no one will marry her. Yep, it gets that heavy, although Dunkle lightens up somewhat after the "kidnapping" of the elf brides. It does rush past the romance a bit more quickly than you'd expect, and the elf women adjust to the feared goblins in way too little time. However, most of the plot moves at a fast clip, giving us plenty of looks at the grimy elf camp and the bloody history between the two races. There's certainly enough backstory to provide plenty of prequels, if Ms. Dunkle chose to write them. Seylin gets plenty of dimension and angst to go along with his interesting elf-cat-goblin shapeshifting. Emily doesn't get much personal growth, sadly. But Dunkle also populates "Close Kin" with plenty of other interesting characters, such as a ditzy elf, a crabby priest, a little girl with her head full of fairy-tales, and a goblin street urchin (who is, incidentally, the most entertaining character in the whole book). The final chapter of "Close Kin" seems to hint at the third book of the Hollow Kingdom Trilogy, and it sounds like the third venture into the kingdom of the goblins will be winner.

First, a disclaimer, I have know Clare since I was a wee little child and have been enthralled by her imagination for (mumble) years. On to the review: I just finished reading her newest book a few nights ago and can hardly wait for the next installment. I love the premise that both Seylin and Emily go on a quest, even though Emily doesn't quite realize that she is on a quest when she first leaves to find Seylin. As with her last book, Clare keeps turning our usual conventions of the heroes/heroines being the beautiful people upside down and inside out, hammering home the idea that physical beauty has nothing to do with what is inside.