There isn't much out there in the misty ether about Ms Foz Meadows. She likes cheese, webcomics and silly hats - her own words. She lives in Melbourne with a philosopher.
Further research shows she dislikes Rom-Coms and liquorice.
Solace and Grief is her first published tome.
It is touted as Book One of The Rare.
This is a good thing as I look forward to the second.
But before I get to the good bits, I do have a few bad bits.
Quick sum up.
Solace Morgan is a vampire. She doesn't discover this until she turns seventeen. She just kind of realises she must be a vampire. She runs away from the home she has been living in, meets up with a gang of misfits who turn out to have Tricks - they're almost a team of X-People. Solace has a past that she doesn't know about that begins to affect them all. They have lots of adventures, there is lots of teen lust, teen angst, and teen talk. There is a cliff-hanger, surprises, betrayals and magic.
Foz, you've got a great idea, interesting world setup, a good main character. BUT your story is choked by words, in particular, adverbs. I don't think there's a sentence in the book that doesn't contain one and many sentences contain several. They're getting in the way of action, plot, character development, and my understanding of what's going on.
Plus, there's a bit incongruity with Solace. She realises she's a vampire, but does nothing about it, doesn't think of the consequences, she decides she's a vampire and that's it. Nothing on trying to get hold of some blood or raw meat, no thoughts on what it would mean if she had to kill someone, nothing like that. If she knows so little about being a vampire, I'd expect her to do some research, thereby defining for the reader what a vampire is in this world. Nope, no research. So, then if she knows what a vampire is, why does she brush it off so lightly? Most readers of this genre are pretty vampire savvy nowadays. This must be acknowledged. And in my reading, this immediate acceptance and lack of curiosity doesn’t convince me in her characterisation. She's a teenager and she's a misfit, being a vampire would be one of the coolest things around. She joins a group of like-minded weirdos and spends her time not doing much at all, just deferring to everyone else in the group.
Of which there are not a few individuals. Foz tries to distinguish them, but she does this by telling us about them, instead of showing. You’re looking at a main cast of around 12 people – this is a hard thing to juggle in a YA-sized novel. They really need to act themselves more, show us what they’re all like, instead of being told.
Having said all that though, it really is a good read and I think it should do well with its target audience. There are some intriguing ideas in it and Sydney is used well as a location.
I loved some of the 'tricks' that the different characters had. Electra's ability to locate lost items and draw them to her for the group’s use is brilliant. It completely hits the spot. Manx as an aptly-named shape-shifter is also cool. Glide's ability to slip in and around alternate worlds is also fantastic and opens up just so many possibilities for future storylines. But these three are the only characters with tricks that I got a grip on. Electra herself as a characer was quite elusive. There is also Evan, who a friend pointed out, is kinda like the Xander of the group. He is, but not enough. He doesn't have enough heart.
A spectacularly brilliant character is The Duchess. She is wonderfully depicted in so many little mannerisms. More of the same please!
I think in a 10 out of 10 in the YA scale, this is sitting at around 5. I think if Foz tightened up her language, used less exposition and killed off some actually important characters instead of dragging in some unknowns and murdering them, she could pull the second book up to an 8ish.
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