TREASURE IN A FIELD

Blaise’s sprawling YA fantasy series opener tells a tale of a lost king’s hidden heirs and a kingdom under threat.

Fourteen-year-old Wesley Delaine and his siblings in the Kingdom of Nantes have grown up with a secret: They have claims to the throne of the missingKing Gaspard through their sorceress mother, Sophia. These claims are further proven by their possession of Gaspard’s private writings detailing a treasure hidden away in a field in an unknown land. Unbeknownst to them, Sophia is alive and hiding from her family to protect them from those who would seek the treasure for their own ends. When the kingdom is attacked by pirate trolls and mysterious magic causes a chaotic winter storm, Wesley is approached by members of an underground rebellion against King Ninian, the current monarch. Their insistence that his mother started the rebellion challenges everything Wesley thought he knew. As his brothers pursue their own claims to succession and King Ninian offers him his friendship, Wesley must decide whom he can truly trust and how best to save the kingdom. Blaise’s worldbuilding is well thought out, and it’s the highlight of the novel, which helpfully features Kimpel’s illustrations of the characters and a detailed map of Nantes. The magic is effectively integrated into the story with vivid descriptions: “A small burst of light, about the size of a pinhead, jumped from the dirt to the edge of the stone, where it shook and shimmered.….Suddenly the dot burst, exploding into brilliant specks.” The cast, however, feels a bit larger than necessary, as there isn’t enough space to develop the people that connect to Wesley’s story, as interesting as they are. Wesley is clearly the heart of the tale, but the narrative often shifts to new point-of-view characters at crucial moments. Also, chapters in which the antagonists explain their plans in detail dispel any dramatic tension that’s built up. Despite this, the story manages to pull the disparate characters’ journeys together even if the pacing lags at times.

An imaginative, if unevenly executed, tale of royal intrigue.