Restoration Day – Deborah Makarios
Princess, pawn–or queen?
Princess Lily was born to be queen of Arcelia, where the land itself has life and magic growing in it. Yet she leads a pawn’s existence in the shadow of her guardians’ control. She dreams of the day when she will take her rightful place in the world.
At last her chance arrives, with a quest for the three Requisites of Restoration Day, the royal rite which renews the life of the land. But she’s been hidden away too long…
Stripped of all she thought was hers, Lily will need to do more than cross the board if she is to emerge triumphant as the queen she knows she must be. The land becomes both field and prize in a gripping game–and this time she’s playing for her life.
Finalist for Best Novel, Sir Julius Vogel Awards 2019.
Restoration Day: the ritual that Arcelia’s monarch performs every fifty years to replenish the ties between the land and its people. Without that ritual, the magic sustaining Arcelia will die. With less than a month to go until Restoration Day, Arcelia’s rightful queen is not prepared. Since the death of her parents fifteen years ago, Lily, days away from her eighteenth birthday, has been kept hidden behind a magical hedge in the mountaintop castle of Candra. Naturally, she’s eager to assume her duties as queen, and escape the stultifying tyranny of her aunt’s regency. Aunt Hortensia has been doing a reasonable job of overseeing Lily’s education in the things a respectable young lady needs to know—the arts, sciences, deportment, dancing, elegant conversation, etc.—but what she has kept from Lily could have disastrous consequences. Like the fact that, after having murdered her parents, Lily’s evil Uncle Phelan rules Arcelia, plundering it for profit, and will not be pleased when Lily, long thought dead, reappears. Or the fact that the land is already dying under his greedy abuse. When Lily defies Aunt Hortensia and escapes through the hedge, she expects to be greeted by swarms of her loyal, cheering subjects. She’s not prepared to be a fugitive, attempting to stay one step ahead of Uncle Phelan brutal troops, on her quest to reclaim the throne and gather the magical artefacts needed to complete the ritual before it is too late. Uncle Phelan, believing she has fled back to Candra, besieges the castle and demands the castle staff hand her over to him. The outmanned loyal retainers put up a strong defence, but will they be able to buy her enough time? I confess I was not impressed with the opening of Restoration Day, by New Zealand author Deborah Makarios. Lily seemed too childish for eighteen, and both too constrained and too clueless to be a respectable ruler. Despite my misgivings, I skimmed the first two chapters, was intrigued by the third, and by the end of the fourth I was hooked. Lily grew on me, especially once she had left Aunt Hortensia behind and traded her frothy pink princess gown for more practical clothes. She makes friends, and collects a champion—an unwilling and skeptical champion—who is not a standard fairytale handsome prince. As she continues on her quest, she learns a few hard lessons, grows up a bit, and displays a sense of responsibility towards Arcelia and its people that makes up for her other faults. There are a few standard tropes, but some others are playfully subverted. Some of the dialog, particularly between Lily and the dwarf Malin, had me laughing out loud, and the Home Alone-style defence of Candra had some clever touches. This clean, noblebright fairytale is a fast, easy read with a happy ending.
Audience: fairytale enthusiasts from teens and up.
Author Bio: This book review is by Barbara Howe, who is writing the Reforging series, a high fantasy epic involving a team of witches and wizards struggling to repair an ancient magic intended to protect their homeland, but now strangling them in its iron grip. Barbara lives in Wellington, New Zealand, and when she’s not writing, she works as a software developer in the film industry, and lives in a house overflowing with books, games, and jigsaw puzzles, and blogs about books at http://barbarahowewriter.com/wordpress/.
