It truly felt like a real world with a rich history. The Good: The world building is fantastic. I’m usually bothered by this sort of thing, but I wasn’t in this book even though the Dead throughout are certainly grotesque. This is a fantasy novel, but there are horror elements as well. Though it’s awkward at first when he joins the point of view and we randomly jumps heads between Sabriel and Touchstone. Once Touchstone comes in the story gets better. The beginning of the book is slow, but it’s worth the wait. On their journey to save her father she frees a guard of the royal family who has secrets of his own and is known only as Touchstone. He tells her that her father was on his way to the capital. Sabriel meets a white cat at her father’s house who calls himself Mogget, (Yes, he can talk.) who is really an ancient being of Free Magic. She knows he’s in danger, so she braves the difficult journey to his house in the Old Kingdom. He sends her his sword covered in Charter Marks and his bells of necromancy.

Sabriel knows something is wrong when Abhorsen’s late for his visit. Sabriel’s boarding school is on the border so she can learn Charter magic there while Abhorsen teaches her necromancy when he visits her twice a year. He lives in the land of the Old Kingdom, but life there is dangerous, so he sends his daughter Sabriel to a boarding school in Ancelstierre, which is protected from the magic in the Old Kingdom by a wall.

Predictability: 4 out of 5 (Where 1 is George RR Martin (If the characters make a plan or think about the future I know it isn’t going to go that way.) And 5 is Cinder (where I guessed what was going to happen long before it did, but it was still a great book.)Ībhorsen is a necromancer, but unlike ordinary necromancers he sends the Dead back to death. Point of View: Third (Sabriel & Touchstone mostly)

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