Book Review--Burdney by Nicole Sager

After reading Hebbros, I knew I would be on the lookout for anything more the author had to offer. Thus I was thrilled for the continuing story in Burdney. I would recommend reading Hebbros first, but I don’t feel reading the author’s original trilogy, The Heart of Arcrea, is entirely necessary to enjoying the Companions of Arcrea series, as her older series doesn’t carry quite the same skill and style as her newest releases (though they’re still good stories). This tale can stand well on its own, but it carries on questions left unanswered from Hebbros and focuses on an easily overlooked character—the jilted bride of Bradley.

I do believe Burdney may be the best book she’s written yet. Its plot has pace slower than Hebbros, but it’s by no means boring. It’s a story of political intrigue, monarchy greed, government intrusion, and layers of conspiracy. Each scene, each move is precisely planned by the author, each piece falling into place to reveal the full picture. For a little while, one certain storyline seems a tad unnecessary. Yes, it is cute and funny, but it’s seems to just be taking up time when we want to go back to the real plot on hand. But as it turns out, that little side story is absolutely vital to the main one. Really, this is expert plotting, something you don’t always see in self-published authors.


And the characters. Oh my, the characters. There are a lot of them. And that doesn’t matter, not for an instant, because each character is so individual and unique that the reader cannot easily mix them up or forget them. Each character is firmly woven into the plot and with each other. Cunning queens, cooks with swords, slaves as lords. Lathan, a blind warrior, is simply too cool for words. But my favorite was probably Dain, the Dragon Slayer. His attitude. Oh my, oh my, oh my. It was nice to see a young man of faith still be full of personality, rashness, and attitude, because it’s so realistic. Really, I want more of his story please. Like another book about him.

Fans of Hebbros will be glad to see more of Epic, sit on the edge of their seats for Warin, and sigh at prevalent mentions of Bradley. Also, the charming minstrel Blunt from The Heart of Arcrea is a very important character.

When I first read Hebbros, the spiritual truth of the story threw me off because the characters were speaking of Jesus Christ and the death and the resurrection, and that feels strange to me in a fantasy world. But one thing that helped me is to consider this series as an alternate reality, dealing with countries that could have existed. The world doesn’t have any magic or rules to be different from ours, so it can easily be pretended to have existed in days long ago.

Too often in Christian fantasy, when the author starts dealing with the religion of the characters, I start feeling preached to. I start feeling like the characters are only people who would exist in a book. I got a little of that feeling in Hebbros, but that changed to something else that I also found in Burdney. The faith of the characters is genuine and real. It is so real, these people might as well be around you, and I want them to be my best friends. There’s nothing contrived about it, nothing written by the author just to get their point across. The people’s faith truly comes to life, their walk complete with doubts, stumbling, and imperfection. I don’t know how to explain it…many Christian authors try to make their character’s faith real, but Nicole Sager succeeds in a way I don’t often come across. Burdney doesn’t deal with the persecution of the church as Hebbros did, but the need for faith in God is still very potent and beautiful.

So looking for an exciting tale of excellent quality? Here’s one. :)