A couple of weeks ago, I finished the first two books in the Elemental Series- a trilogy, really. These two are YA novels set in the Victorian Era- 1889 & 1890.
The Vespertine
The Vespertine begins:
I woke in Oakhaven, entirely ruined.
The story starts in Autumn of 1889, “the present”, and continues to switch back to the Spring of 1889 and the events that lead up to the present. Amelia van den Broek goes to Baltimore in the Spring of 1889 to live with a cousin, in the hopes of finding a husband. She immediately falls into friendship with her cousin Zora and joins her circle of friends. One night, Zora’s parents host a dinner party for the young people and hire a Fourteenth- usually a young artist who hires himself out so that dinner parties need not have an unlucky number of guests, thus becoming the fourteenth person at the party. The Fourteenth is a gentleman named Nathaniel, who, despite his poor prospects, Amelia finds herself immediately drawn to. While at the party, Amelia imagines a ball scene playing out in the rays of a setting sun and she recognizes the figures as Zora and the object of her affection, Thomas. When the scene comes to pass, Amelia soon realizes she has a gift to see the future in the Vespers. As her relationship with her Baltimore friends grows, Zora lends Amelia out as a Vespertine, a party trick for people wanting their futures told. The problem is, these scenes keep coming to pass, and not all of them are good. Disaster strikes the group and Amelia finds herself in Oakhaven, entirely ruined. Given a second chance by her sister-in-law, Amelia does set out on her own adventure at the conclusion of the novel.
The Springsweet, Elementals Vol. 2
The Springsweet picks up soon after The Vespertine leaves off. Zora feels as though Baltimore is suffocating her after her recent loss. She decides she wants to leave it all behind and sets on marrying a homesteader and moving West. Her mother is less than thrilled with this idea, but consents to let Zora move West and help her Aunt who is widowed with a small child. She gets off to a rough start out in the Oklahoma Territory, but soon learns her way around the homestead. She finds herself drawn to Emerson- a man with questionable prospects who seems to always show up at the right time, while her Aunt would prefer to see her with Theo, a charming well-educated man who followed her from Baltimore. Zora learns that like her cousin, Amelia, she has a special talent- they call her a springsweet, she can sense water underground- a particularly useful talent out in the parched Territory. Zora needs to decide if she should plant her roots here, return home, or set out on a new adventure, and with whom she will do this.
There is a third book, The Elementals which is supposed to follow the next generation. I have yet to read it, but I will certainly pick it up sometime in the future. As for my thoughts: quite honestly, I started The Vespertine in the fall and read a couple of chapters before shelving the book- I wasn’t really into it. Later, desperate for something to read, I picked it back up again and I’m glad I did. These books are, quite simply, historical romances with a bit of supernatural thrown in. The writing is quite good, but it took me some time to adjust to the time switch in The Vespertine . I admit, I liked Zora’s story better than Amelia’s. There were times where I felt like Sassy Gay Friend, from TheSecondCityNetwork”I think you’re fourteen and an idiot!” with Amelia and her attraction to Nathaniel. That being said, I enjoyed these novels for what they were. They had romance, intrigue, super powers, cute boys, and were fast reads.
In The Book Stacks 