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Chalice | 
 enlarge | Author: Robin Mckinley
Publisher: Putnam Juvenile
Category: Book
List Price: $18.99
Buy New: $10.77
You Save: $8.22 (43%)
New (35) Used (9) from $10.77
Rating:  33 reviews
Sales Rank: 6177
Media: Hardcover
Reading Level: Young Adult
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 272
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 6.2 x 1
ISBN: 0399246762
EAN: 9780399246760
ASIN: 0399246762
Publication Date: September 18, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
As the newly appointed Chalice, Mirasol is the most important member of the Masters Circle. It is her duty to bind the Circle, the land and its people together with their new Master. But the new Master of Willowlands is a Priest of Fire, only drawn back into the human world by the sudden death of his brother. No one knows if it is even possible for him to live amongst his people. Mirasol wants the Master to have his chance, but her only training is as a beekeeper. How can she help settle their demesne during these troubled times and bind it to a Priest of Fire, the touch of whose hand can burn human flesh to the bone? Robin McKinley weaves a captivating tale that reveals the healing power of duty and honor, love and honey.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 28 more reviews...
 Boring! January 1, 2009
That was frustratingly--almost painfully--boring, repetitive, and just stupid. Whole months glance by, and absolutely nothing really happens. After "Sunshine" I had higher expectations, but perhaps that one was a fluke.
A short but very riveting tale! December 31, 2008
This was a very interesting novella. The characters came to life and I was fully engrossed for the half a day it took to finish the book. While the book was great, it felt more like a short story than an actual novel. There were time skips and interactions glossed over that I was interested in seeing. All in all a fun book to read, but it could have been more.
Disappointing December 19, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I'm a fan of several of McKinley's other novels, including Beauty and The Hero and the Crown. I thought this book had an interesting concept that was poorly fleshed out, and that the telling of the story, especially of the first half of the book, was messy and disorganized. The main character, Mirasol, is interesting and well-developed, but the other main character, the Master, is pretty much a shell. This book would have benefited from better editing and maybe 50-100 more pages to fill in the gaps.
 beautiful, luminous December 17, 2008
Usually whenever I think of Robin McKinley, I think of Patricia McKillip also. This is partially because their last names are similar: first four letters identical, plus the "l" sound, plus three syllables with the emphasis on the second. Their books are on most shelves together, in libraries and bookstores, with Dennis McKiernan's looking over their shoulders, wanting in on the party (justifiably left outside, I believe). But it is also because the projects of both women seem similar. They write novel-length fairy tales, McKillip usually making up her own, McKinley usually retelling old ones. Both often end these fairy tales with an explosive climax of incomprehensible magic that leaves me feeling bewildered.
On a normal day, I would say that McKillip is the better writer. Her language is beautiful. I do not usually think of Robin McKinley when I think of Patricia McKillip, for instance. McKinley's books can feel a bit too politically charged, too "ripped from the headlines" for my taste, dealing directly with issues like child abuse and environmentalism. Not that fairy tales should be irrelevant to current problems, but I prefer them to work more...indirectly. But after reading Chalice I am moved to give McKinley credit, to say that while McKillip's books are beautiful (if a bit emotionally cold), and you pretty much know what you are getting when you pick them up, when McKinley is on (as she was in Deerskin and Spindle's End, as she is in Chalice), she writes better stories, stories that delve deeper into the emotions, that go after the heart harder and further and find it.
Ironically, Chalice reminds me quite a bit of McKillip. The heroine and protagonist of this book, Mirasol, has just become the magical second-in-command of her "demesne," or tiny state, and feels wholly inadequate to the task, because she doesn't know how to do it at all (her predecessor died abruptly and tragically, and Mirasol was just a beekeeper when the magic chose her). Her superior, the Master of the demesne, is similarly fresh on the job, and similarly unqualified, scarcely being human. The magical ties between Mirasol, the Master, and the land--the sense of close and mystical kinship with nature in order to rule it--is strongly reminiscent of McKillip's best book: Riddle-Master. Like McKillip, as far as I can tell McKinley has made up her own fairy-tale this time, and perhaps because of this seems susceptible to influences from McKillip and other writers. We have fanes (and perhaps faneways), as in Greg Keyes. The surprising gift of magical powers to someone too weak and inexperienced to control them is as powerful here as in Robin Hobb's stories of FitzChivalry Farseer.
But Chalice also preserves the very best of Robin McKinley: clear prose with an unadorned beauty, a love of nature and animals which attributes sentient powers to them (this time, bees are surprisingly wise), a simple and confined story with a deeply emotional core. The emotion here is despair at your own weakness, the courage to continue to act even though you know you must fail with disastrous consequences. Not, perhaps, ripped from the headlines, but it's been on the ticker tape of my heart more than once. That the story doesn't turn out as disastrously as everyone had feared feels a little bit like what in another context I might call grace, kindness stepping in from outside to help out people who need help and who deserve to be rooted for.
I read most of Chalice on a winter morning, with a scant lamp fighting off the chill white light coming in through the windows. They were beautiful, luminous hours.
Good young adult book December 13, 2008
Mirasol is a beekeeper who recently became the Chalice of her demesne. She and the rest of the Circle must deal with each other and the new Master of the demesne as he returns from exile to the elemental priesthood of Fire. Mirasol must deal with her new role and the interference of the Overlord. The story is told through Mirasol's point of view some information provided in flashbacks. Through most of the book there is not a big driving conflict but is mostly just how Mirasol deals with the other members of the Circle and learning about being Chalice. Her relationship with the Master develops as she gets to know him.
Robin McKinley is one of my favorite authors and I expected to like this book quite a bit. I did like the book, but the reading level was a bit lower than I am used to as it is a young adult book. The characters could have been fleshed out a bit more and I would have like a more straightforward timeline instead of starting in the middle and using flashbacks. It was a quick read for me but I enjoyed it.
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