Reading [Novel] A Long Journey

Fiery Inspiration: Lucky Clothing

How are you today? I hope it's snowing a little on your side so that the winter magic continues a little and that your health is pretty good. I'm taking you into a novel this time and I'll leave you with the summary of this step.

Born into a family of fishermen, Liesse had to leave his native village when his father died. Crude but clever, he manages to make his way into the trading post where he has been placed. To the point of being taken as secretary by Malvine Zélina de Félarasie, imperial ambassador to the Archipelago, an aristocrat promised the greatest political destinies. In the wake of the young woman, Liesse will embark on a great journey far from her islands and become, over the years, the privileged witness of the end of an Empire.

I didn't know this publishing house at all, so "Aux Forges de Vulcain" is a total discovery and it's the summary that first caught my attention. Because fantasy is one of the genres I read the most – my darling knows it wonderfully, to the point that I dragged her into a universe recently – and my curiosity was piqued. From what I have also learned, Claire Duvivier is an editor herself.

 We follow Liesse, an ordinary person at the beginning who has to leave her mother and the rest of her family when her father dies in order to lighten her father's burden. He will find himself at the trading post where he will become a "Slave" before becoming, much later, a more important cog in this world that we discover with him. A world where taboos exist, where encounters can be important and in which mysteries are also present. We discover a testimony, a "memory-story", which could put off more than one and yet works wonderfully as soon as you enter it. As for the characters, they are really accessible, I didn't want to shake one of them during the whole story which is already a good thing.

Because there are encounters and it will always be from Liesse's point of view that we will know who is who, her vision of the said character. He is the one who makes us live events that have already passed, events full of nostalgia for our hero... We feel close to him as the pages go by, even if the beginning can easily make us believe that our journey will be made up of known elements, elements that we don't find at every corner of the page just by our main protagonist. A being who has no powers, who will have to make do with his own resources, who had nothing of what we call a "Chosen One" and who is the witness of the end of an Empire... The one he knew, that we discovered with him.

 This makes us "indirect witnesses" of the history of this place, of the journey in this Archipelago, in Felarasie, in these places unknown to ourselves and that I enjoyed discovering, surveying. Which I appreciated knowing more about because the text was not "heavy", it remained alive, made you want to know more once in it. A story told on a "human scale", where feelings take precedence over the rest.  Of course, it may not take for everyone, that some are looking for something completely different. But like any tale, the story begins gently before taking us along, making us see other possible paths, lives that we would also like to discover.

I really appreciated the author's writing, his way of doing things allowing the reader to discover little by little what is happening, to see that everything falls into place in a logical way, is thought out until the end, until the last page of this "testimony". We realize that there is a gap between what is experienced and what is told, making the reader understand that it is the same in our world. That what we know comes from only a few people compared to the novel and that this can happen, in our country, when we have only one side of the story. Because we put some of ourselves into it when we write something, even if we want to be as objective as possible, it remains subjective and we see it with Liesse as well. A sweet surprise that will have drawn me away and for which I tried to be as evasive as possible so as not to spoil you.

Have you read it or do you plan to read it?

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