Ysabel - Guy Gavriel Kay

I was incredibly excited that Kay, author of one of my all-time favorite books: The Lions of Al-Rassan, had finally published a new novel. Boy, was I disappointed in this one.

Ysabel was somewhat of a continuation of The Fionavar Tapestry trilogy, although it wasn't advertised that way. I kind of wish it had been so that my expectations would have been lower. While the premise was good and some of the characters were interesting, it just wasn't very well executed. It felt like it needed some serious editing to realize it's potential. I was particularly turned off by the weird sexual attraction that materialized out of nowhere at the end of the story between the high school kid and the woman who acted like his mom. When the author implied that they were having sex, I almost stopped reading the book in absolute disgust. Since it was only a few pages to the end I persevered and it redeemed itself somewhat, but I was seriously not impressed. In all, this novel was a disappointment.