The Quill Pen
Michelle Isenhoff
CreateSpace
Fiction, YA Fantasy/Historical Fiction
Themes: Cross-Genre, Wishes
***+
Description
In a small Northeastern coastal town in 19th-century America, the boy Micah Randall yearns for wild places, the open frontiers he reads about in books, where railroads and progress and walls don't box a man's life in like the walls of his father's general store. But he is a Randall, son of a prosperous line of Randalls, and it seems his future is already inked in the family ledgers. Rented out like a mule to the old widow Parsons, Micah discovers a strange treasure while sorting through the woman's attic: a quill pen, golden as the rising sun, which needs no ink to write. Captivated, he sneaks it out of the burn pile and back to his home, where he discovers that the words it writes have a strange way of coming true. So much power - to cast off his father's crushing yoke, to heal the rifts of his town, to live out his own dreams - set the boy's head spinning... but no magic comes without cost. The quill pen's gifts come with a terrible curse, one that has already claimed many lives through the centuries. Even as he realizes the dangers, the pen's curse threatens those he loves the most. Can the cowardly boy find the courage to end an evil as old as the sea itself?
Review
This book nearly earned a solid Good rating. It unfolds with an almost lyrical beauty, describing the life of a pastoral coastal village feeling the first tugs toward the modern, industrialized world. Unfortunately, the descriptions grow a bit thick, drawing out the story as the narrative wanders down various side-streets. The quill pen itself doesn't even make an appearance for a good stretch while characters and the setting are laboriously established. Indeed, the whole tale of the quill pen often feels more like a backdrop than the main storyline; it could almost have been trimmed out with minimal impact, which is a disapointing thing to say about such an interesting magical artifact - one that inspires the title, even. Micah also spends too long without a spine, crippled by his cowardice and fear of his own father. The burst of action at the end caught me by surprise, given the long build-up. That said, it's not a bad book by any means. Isenhoff's writing is eminently readable, and the story has a nice polish. It just moved too slowly for my tastes.