And what I mostly cared about was the romance, which was maybe not as romantic as some people might like, but it was very well-developed, and I loved what it had to say about love and about how sometimes loving someone means doing something you normally wouldn’t do. Shinn does make a small error towards the end-basically, Corie tells her sister something, and then later on wonders how her sister knows about that thing-but everything is so well paced and revealed that I could ignore it. And, of course, my favorite part of the book was the ending, where intrigue collides with tension, and there are several big character moments for all of the main characters. The best part of this intrigue is, of course, the slow reveal of the character Bryan’s personality and tendencies, as he goes from flirtatious, energetic teenager to smiling monster. So we see parts of it, and only get hints at the rest. There’s a lot of court intrigue, which I loved, but the best part is that its intrigue interpreted through the eyes of someone who isn’t really involved in all the intrigue. The most prominent is the aliora, which seem like a pretty useless addition-take them out of the story and everything stays the same-but they do contribute to the world in a way that perhaps wouldn’t be as effective if they had been left out. There’s a bit of odd stuff scattered around, but it all contributes to the world and to the characters. The book is pretty slow up until about the middle, but once you get to the middle, you see why the first part was important.
It’s slow, and meandering, but there’s so much to think about and to see develop. But I enjoyed it the way I enjoyed Juliet Marillier and Kate Constable-and Shinn’s other works. Now, I’ve read other books that are more immediately gripping- The King of Attolia, for one-and it’s not the type of book that I feel I could read over and over again. It took me a while to actually get it, though. The title, plus the rating on Goodreads, plus my love for 2000s fantasy, all contributed to my desire to read the book. Rating: 5/5 Summers at Castle Auburn has been on my reading list for quite a while-since the first Sharon Shinn book I’ve read ( T he Safe-Keeper’s Secret), I think. Summers at Castle Auburn, by Sharon Shinn, was published in 2001 by Ace.
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