Description:

From School Library Journal

King Drustan's heir has vanished. With Prince Cassiel missing, nothing is right: the trees do not bear fruit and babies are stillborn. Attempting to unravel this mystery is Neill, the King's elder son known throughout court as "the Bastard," and Timou, a 17-year-old mage who has learned her art from her father. Though Neill and Timou have never met, they share a common origin: an enigmatic woman with pale hair and dark eyes who bore them to their respective fathers before vanishing. When she does return, this powerful sorceress is bent on using her offspring and her magic to seize control of the Kingdom. This poetically written tale follows its multi-threaded story line through sinister forests, mazes of light, and numerous worlds, including a different facet of the Kingdom—a perfect realm frozen in time and reflected in the lake surrounding the City. Though the how and why of all of this is sometimes vague, Neumeier spins a good tale of two young people coming to terms with a sinister heritage. Give this one to readers who enjoy the dark, dreamlike fantasy of Neil Gaiman.—_Christi Esterle, Parker Library, CO_

From

Starred Review The City in the Lake is a robust, prosperous kingdom until Prince Cassiel vanishes. Beloved by all, the prince represents the kingdom’s heart, and after his disappearance, life withers throughout the land. In a remote village, 17-year-old Timou’s father, a mage, departs for the city to search for the source of the kingdom’s malaise, and when he doesn’t return, Timou sets off after him. Her journey requires her, for the first time, to draw heavily on her own mage training, and as she circles closer to the kingdom’s mysteries, she finds shocking personal connections and, ultimately, love. Neumeier structures her story around archetypal fantasy elements: mages, magic, and a protagonist whose perilous quest serves as her coming-of-age. It’s the poetic, shimmering language and fascinating unfolding of worlds that elevates this engrossing story beyond its formula. Layered within each other, the discovered kingdoms pulse with enchantments and ancient laws, and Neumeier’s language is particularly poetic in describing her characters’ ever-shifting forms, whether shattered planes of light to ethereal columns of smoke. Fans of Sharon Shinn’s books will find a similar celebration of the natural world—from the dense darkness of a forest to the “crystalline music” of the stars—in this vividly imagined debut. Grades 8-11. --Gillian Engberg