Esme returns to her home to find her father almost broken thanks to her mother's and her own latest dissappearances, but instead of finding hope of rebuilding what was lost, she faces even more dismal circumstances. Her step-mother is in control and is using her father much more than Esme first suspected. But when Esme approaches her father, he refuses to listen to her and wants her hauled off to the psychiatrist like her mother was. Esme escapes and is forced to try to figure out how to wake her mother from the coma on her own. But time is ticking and Esme hasn't even started to dig into the world of magic which awaits her.
This is such a well-written book! I did read the first one in the series and was looking forward to continuing the adventure. There's more character depth and a smoother, more enticing tension in these pages than there was even in the last book. Esme has grown, but still has a lot to learn. She's down-to-earth and although some decisions are a bit risky, it's understandable why she does what she does. It's hard not to get lost in this book as she battles not only to discover a way to help her mother but find the path to discovering herself.
From the first chapter, I was hooked. The opening scenes with her return home and meeting with her father pull at the heart strings, while adding the disturbing sense that evil lurks nearby. It's hard not to feel her desperation, hope and doubt as she comes up against all sorts of unexpected hurdles. It's nice that she doesn't have to tackle everything alone but has golden friends. And it's this ray of light which makes the darker moments so much fun to read. I can't wait to dive into the next book and see what Esme is up against next
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Top reviews from the United States
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- Reviewed in the United States on May 3, 2020
- Reviewed in the United States on January 3, 2020
- Reviewed in the United States on April 21, 2020
Top reviews from other countries
- Mark ODwyerReviewed in Australia on December 11, 2020
Gifts and powers alone cannot defeat darkness for courage and friends are needed too
'A parade of craft cruised the lagoon: gilt-edged ferries and gondolas in jewel-like colours - dazzling blues, crimsons, emerald greens. Sea dragons looped above the rooftops, twisting their sinuous forms ... . Esme's Gift Ch. 3.'Mark ODwyerGifts and powers alone cannot defeat darkness for courage and friends are needed too
Reviewed in Australia on December 11, 2020
Oh dear, our world is not in its finest shape right now, is it. Wouldn't it be wonderful to be elsewhere. Fortunately, I have to hand Esme's Gift, the sequel to Esme's Wish, and I can plunge once more into another world and see again the towers of the city of Esperance and the siren islands of Aeolia.
Esme returns to Aeolia after her failed attempt to convince her father to join her. The evil Nathan Mare is at large and intent on finding the secret knowledge entrusted to her. But high-school waits for no teenager, and in the classrooms and library of Pierpont school she can find friends and allies. And what a library it is.
'(Ancient gondalas) repurposed into shelves, lined the library's walls ... No longer fit to carry passengers, they now carried books to the shores of the readers' minds. Esme's Gift Ch. 12.'.
Esme must gather the strange ingredients of the only elixir that can save her mother. To obtain these elements takes all her courage and all the combined gifts and powers of her friends. But some people are not who they seem to be, and the tension never lets up.
The Esme Trilogy is written by Elizabeth Foster with the 'Young Adult' audience in mind. But if you happen to be older (after all, some of us have yet to find a potion to wind back the years - and if the high risk alchemical experiments in Esperance are anything to go by, we should stay well away from any such potions or concoctions, or who knows what could happen!) .. if you happen to be an older reader who loves a beguiling fantasy world and tales of ghosts and of quests into dark caverns guarded by monsters and ghouls, and if you also don't object to dragons .. The books of the Esme trilogy will be a real treat for you.
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- ArianrhodReviewed in Australia on January 8, 2021
A welcome escape from 'real' life
