Secret Speakers
Category:
Fantasy
Type: Fiction
Fair O'Nelli is a normal girl, except for one small fact: She has spent the last nine years of her life living in a cellar with her loyal dog, studying the Scrolls of Truth by mysterious fingerlight, educated by her mother in the dark of night to avoid being discovered. She knows that her father and brother are missing . . . or dead.
Fair is set free on the day she comes of age, when it's safe for her to be seen. Little does she know the gods are about to call her to bring a miracle to Cloven Grave.
In the company of three guardians, Fair encounters dangers and adventures as she follows the grassy path to find a stranger named Selador at an unknown place called Selador's Gate.
Along the way, Fair discovers a deep, dark secret the parents of Cloven Grave know nothing about.
Secret Speakers is a luminous tale of triumph to be embraced by young adult readers as well as adults. This magical novel pulls you around dark corners, drags you down to the depths of the earth, and lifts you up to the soaring realm of Rall Kindaria, leaving you breathless with the possibility that you are never, ever, alone. Ever
Secret Speakers is a young adult fantasy novel that was originally released in serial form as a cell phone novel at TextNovel.com. It has gained a rapid following of readers from the early release event at Goodreads.com called, Secret Speakers: Read & Rate It , where early readers will have their name in the back of the first edition as a thank you for participating ($17.95 Rawle & Windsor Publishing. April 2009). Rawle & Windsor is Kingworth's own publishing imprint.
The overall strength of Secret Speakers and the Search for Selador's Gate, lies in its masterfully presented twist on L. Frank Baum's, The Wizard of Oz, and C. S. Lewis', The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Secret Speakers cleverly echoes these classic stories in a lusciously-written, darkly humorous fantasy, sure to resonate with young adult readers as well as adults.
While Secret Speakers begins with Fair O'Nelli's forbidden departure from home, hidden in the back of a hay wagon to receive her apron of maidenhood, the story cleverly evolves into a poignant confrontation between Fair and two others: Harrold King, who rules Cloven Grave, and his minion, Pewgen Flype, who rules the lives of the matternots---children Fair's age who are enslaved in the caves of Osden Shorn.
In answer to Thelras, Mother Queen of Light's call, Fair sets out with three protective guardians to find a mysterious hoomin named Selador at an unknown place called Selador's Gate. Fair must pay to pass the many gates she encounters along the way, and in return she gives up her fears, doubts and loneliness, experiencing a complete transformation in the end.
Secret Speakers is a magical and tenderly written coming-of-age tale, sprinkled with contrasting elements of the sublime and grotesque. It is a magnificent allegorical fantasy, a miracle not to be missed.
Excerpt
Fair O’Nelli lay completely still inside a closed wooden box, dark, shallow and wide.
For all intents and purposes, she had been dead for nine years. Other than that, she’d had a wonderful childhood—except for a certain bitterness that had taken root in a far off reach of her heart.
A loud horn blast sounded in the distance. She opened her eyes. Two round pools of silver blue hovered in the coffin-like space, and she began to hum a little tune to herself. Very quietly.
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