If you like fairy tales, castles, magic, and themes about death and what lies beyond, give Sabriel a try. Going through the arch, from mud into snow, from bright sun into the pallid luminescence of a snowfall, from her past into her future. All to answer if Sabriel is capable of growing to the needs of her dire quest. Along this journey, the reader will experience moments of wonder, moments of apprehension, and moments of fear. In her mind, she carries the words of the ever-changing book of the dead, and on her body, a sword and seven bells of seven sizes, each if rang true will carry its sound even beyond life. The book tells the story of Sabriel and her journey into the Old Kingdom, a place filled with magic and wonders and ruins where dormant evils await in shallow graves. As to what I am, I was once many things, but now I am only several. Either way, I'm glad that I started because I was hooked by the writing style from the beginning. Maybe it's because I've been living under a rock, but by coincidence, I had not seen any posts or commentaries about it here before I start reading it.

This was my first book by Garth Nix and I was not expecting to like his writing so much.

Sabriel is the best fantasy novel I read in more than a year. All woven by beautiful charming language which gives the whole novel the feeling of a fairy tale, or of a waking dream being imagined just before the all-consuming sleep. Set 600 years before the previous books, the story follows Clariel, a relation of the. Talking cat, magic bells, abandoned castles, a journey into an old kingdom, the eerie feeling of impending darkness. Clariel is the newest addition to Garth Nix's Old Kingdom series, and a highly anticipated one at that.

Clariel by Garth Nix