I want to begin by thanking the Fantastic Flying Book Club for organizing this tour. I really love being a part of Fantastic Flying Book Club tours, they do a fantastic job organizing everything and are a joy to work with. Obviously, I am not the only stop on this tour so be sure to follow the other posts by clicking the image below.
There are some really great blogs participating in this tour as well and I know they would love it if you stopped in and showed their blog a little love. Now, I have been excited about this book since I first heard of it. So, when I saw the chance to sign up for a blog tour, I did not hesitate. Well, let’s get to it, shall we?
The Antidote
Author: Shelley Sackier
Published: February 5th, 2019
Publisher: Harper Teen
Book Length: 368 Pages
Genre: Fantasy (YA)
♥ ♥ ♥ (3.5)
Buy the book: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Book Depository (Use my referral ID: TheBibliophagist)
Disclaimer: I received an e-copy of this book from the publisher on Edelweiss in exchange for my honest opinion and review.
Magic is not allowed, under any circumstances — even if it could save someone’s life. Instead, there are herbal remedies and traditional techniques that have been painstakingly recorded in lieu of using the mystical arts. Fee knows this, so she keeps her magic a secret.
Except her best friend, Xavi, is deathly ill. He’s also the crown prince. Saving him is important, not only for her, but for the entire kingdom.
Fee’s desperation to save her friend means she can barely contain the magic inside her. And after the tiniest of slips, Fee is thrust into a dark and secretive world that is as alluring as it is dangerous.
If she gives in, it could mean she can save Xavi. But it also means that those who wish to snuff out magic might just snuff her out in the process.
Everyone loves a good story that involves magic, am I right? Witches are showing up in more fantasy books and it makes me so happy! I want to follow and become a witch but I need to find some really good resource to read from. If you know of any, let me know!!
Now, how about forbidden magic that just might be what is needed to save the kingdom? Even better than just witches and magic alone!
If you would like to get a little sneak peek of The Antidote, take a look here for an excerpt! But for now, let’s learn a little more about the amazing author behind this title.
About the Author
Shelley Sackier grew up in a small farming community in Northern Wisconsin continually searching for ways to grow warm. Realizing she would never be able to enjoy ice cream like real people should, she left the state and lived the blissful life of a traveling musician. Discovering her stories needed more space than two verses a bridge and a chorus could provide, she began storytelling in earnest. And then in Virginia. Which is where she lives now and continues to write.
Her first novel, DEAR OPL (Sourcebooks 2015), is a tale about a snarky, overweight thirteen-year-old, who suffers from loss everywhere in her life except on her body.
Her next novel, The Freemason’s Daughter (HarperCollins, 2017) is a story about a 16 yr old Scottish girl living in 1715 who has raised entirely by six burly Scotsman–and they’re all smugglers. The Antidote (HarperCollins February 2019) is a YA novel about magic and medicine, and the witches who wield them both.
To learn more about Shelley, visit shelleysackier.com where she blogs weekly about living on a small farm atop a mountain in the Blue Ridge and how it’s easiest to handle most of it with homegrown food, a breathless adoration for tractors, and a large dose of single malt scotch.
Review and Favorite Quotes
First, let’s talk about this cover…this beautiful cover. I really love the color scheme used here. The navy and peach colors just blend perfectly, I always loved the combination of oranges and blues. It catches the eye and draws me in. The apothecary bottle shown represents the antidote each person is required to take every day. Simple but the designs around it are elegant.
The first thing I think I have to mention is that there is a lot of mystery involved in this novel. I actually enjoy that, the learning information as the character does. If this is something that you find yourself getting frustrated with, you might not enjoy this novel very much. Many readers may end up confused, as Fee is, for a good portion of the novel. For me, I enjoyed this type of storytelling but even then there were times I was a little unsure of what was going on.
One thing that bothered me was the fact that some things just felt forced. There was a mysterious sickness that tore through one of the four kingdoms and they were able to somehow get all of the children out and some of the adults. OK, this is plausible and I can see that happening. But what I don’t understand is how they could come up with an antidote so quickly that none of these people died. Do you know how long it takes to develop a medicine that works for a new, unfamiliar illness? I’ll tell you…a really long time. As someone who studied biology in school, my favorite class being microbiology, I understand the inner workings of this type of situation and it just seemed too fake, forced and unplausible.
Well…now onto a few good things about the book huh? The pace was great, after the first few chapters! At first, I too was a little confused as to what was going on so it took a bit to really get into a good reading rhythm. But I soon found myself absorbed in the book and I turned the pages without knowing because I just had to know what happened next. The plot, as mentioned above, has many twists and turns that try to surprise the reader. There were a few that I did not expect but one big one was predictable…maybe because I’ve read so many mystery or crime books that I could easily see that coming. I was guessing well before it even happened. Overall, the story was engaging and did hold my attention. The relationships between the characters were one of my favorite aspects of the book.
Keep your secret close, for your enemies are all around you…
Fee: Her real name is Ophelia but we are not always reminded of that. So that was a bit confusing at times when I had to remember that Ophelia was in fact Fee. She has always known she had the ability to do things that are…not normal. She must hide it from everyone and I can tell that weighs on her. It is a part of herself she must bury from view. I can imagine how hard that must be. I know I would find it difficult, especially as a child. She is a strong character and I did find that I could relate to her. Her fear of losing those she loved, fear of being caught and punished for what she is. But despite that, her love for Xavi and Rye was nice to see. She was determined to do whatever needed to save them both.
Her entire life had been built upon saving people and yet, right now, she felt an unwieldy weight of dread proclaiming that she could not save Xavi or Rye from either of their fates. And if this turned out to be true, then there was no point in even trying to save herself.
Xavi: Xavi…the soon to be King. He is often shown as being fatigued and ill, despite the antidotes given to him. Almost as if they just aren’t working and they have yet to find a cure. But my question was…why was Xavi the only one? Why didn’t his strain of whatever spread? Or was he not receiving the right antidote? But overall he was a strong character as well and I did enjoy him.
Fireli’s Three Seclusion Rules: You must never leave the castle grounds of Fireli, or the confines of your hamlet if you live outside the castle. You must never use more than the barest of Fireli’s meager resources. You must always take your antidote.
Quinn: I would have liked to see a little more of her. It felt like she appeared and was not around long before she was gone.
Rye: The brother of Prince Xavi and the one who had been arranged to marry Fee. He was described as being handsome but man was he dumb at times. He hadn’t seen Fee in ten years, man that would be so long to be away from someone you are to marry.
I will say the friendship between Fee and Xavi was probably my favorite aspect of this book. They remained close through childhood and even as adults were there for one another. It was fun seeing them laugh at one another and be supportive. It was really nice to see a platonic relationship remain just that.
Shelley did a fantastic job creating a magical realm and mysterious feel to the book. Forbidden magic, herbal antidotes, dark dungeons…just overall well done. I will say that the world building just fell a little flat for me in the end. I wanted to know more. More about the history of each kingdom and its people. I did find that at one point I was imagining the Capitol from Hunger Games. But I wanted more about the illness and how it killed people, I am a biology person as I mentioned above, so I prefer to know more rather than less when it comes to illnesses. Give me those details about how it attacked their immune system and they passed away from a small cold or how it slowly broke down their bodies higher functions…something. I know, I know…I am gross but I love the details. I wanted a grand world, one I was pulled into by vivid imagery. One I could watch envelop me as I read, but it just didn’t make it there.
This was a good read and I would for sure recommend it to readers who enjoy fantasy and mystery novels. Especially if you do not mind being confused for a bit until things fall into place. With strong characters and an interesting plot, it was enjoyable but there is room for improvement. Another great thing about The Antidote is that it is standalone! We need more of these in the fantasy world. Sometimes I don’t want to invest time into a series but would love a good read.
Why Shelley Wrote Antidote
I thought this would be really interesting to add to this blog tour post. Here is Shelley talking about exactly why she wrote this great novel.
“You should not be so afraid of your own power.”
“My what?” I’d asked, pulling my hand out of my auntie’s grip. We faced each other across a diner’s table, taking a break from sitting at my dying grandmother’s bedside. She had a brain tumor, yet was still so full of joy and warmth.
“You’re just like us. Like all the women in our family with special abilities.”
Special abilities. This was code for witch, or mystic, or one who sees auras. I was nineteen and stared hard at my aunt—this voluptuous, perfumed, red-headed woman who smoked thin, brown cigarettes and had a laugh like a siren’s call.
Like Fee, the young apprentice in The Antidote, my youth had been carefully constructed so that interactions with the more overt and emboldened women of the “magical” side of the family were brief. But they found me. Despite my mother’s efforts. They insisted on sharing the color of energy surrounding me—You’re as yellow as the sun, their latest cosmic mapping of my future— The moon is your celestial ruler and will soon fling you headlong into fresh radical change!, and conversations they’d had with others long passed on—They say you’re an old soul who’s lived many times before, child.
I did not want to hear.
My grade school friends found it amusing that I’d announce who was on the other end of a ringing phone, or what color M&M was in their mouths, or even when the fire alarm was about to go off. I preferred to bashfully identify my unexplainable oddities with coincidence and the universe’s fickle ways with randomness.
I focused my energies on science and math because it impressed my father and hid the unrelenting urges to be in the middle of a field under a cap of sorcerous starlight because it worried my mother. As young women, we’re coached to find our authentic selves and not be a carbon copy of our classmates. We’re told to move against the plagiaristic pod our peers choose to swim in for safety. But don’t stray too far off the beaten path.
Yet what does one do when one’s nature refuses to be subdued? When parts of you leak out in unexpected ways and people take notice? Should you spend your life hiding or hidden, like Fee? Apologizing and denying, like me?
Writing The Antidote opened the doors to the many voices that had been bridled in my past— both for me, and by me. I gave them a chance to direct a story, to play with their palette of color and dimension, insight and perspective. Like the consortium of witches Fee comes across—her kingdom’s healers who explain where she fits into the tapestry of her family’s narrative, and who shed light on her undeniable hallmark traits—I let my muses tell the hushed stories that refused to be suppressed. Because … they are healing. They’re someone’s truth. And perhaps, soon, I will find them to be my truth too.
I believe the things we don’t understand fill us with great angst. I’m also convinced that the only way to overcome one’s fear is to march right up to its front door and bang on its gothic knocker.
Many of us wish to escape who we genuinely are, to reinvent ourselves anew, and leave the dread of being discovered far behind us in a dusty, cobwebbed crate. But like Fee, and any diligent apprentice, we can choose to study ourselves. We can probe our curiosities, examine the life we’ve been born into, and make sense of the threads that tether us to this existence. But it will take strength. It will take grit and bravery, and boundless resilience.
My grandmother told me that. When I sat with her, at the end, I saw her true magic—her indefatigable optimism. It poured through her hands and into mine, a muted current of determined luminescence, a gentled firefly as autumn muffled its light. She said, “Dying is hard, but living can be harder—until you meet yourself. That is when the world throws open her windows and you can finally breathe.”
If encouraged to be the people we truly are, to be permitted to grow into our fullest potential, one of us may find the antidote to all that destructive fear we needlessly carry around.
And who wouldn’t want a cure for what ails us all?
Giveaway
Congrats!! You made it through that long post! Now you have the chance to enter to win a physical copy of The Antidote (US Only…sorry). The giveaway started January 28th and will end February 11th so be sure to get those entries in!
Disclaimer: This post may contain affiliate links.
Pingback:January 2019 Monthly Wrap-up – The Bibliophagist