Tadiana ✩Night Owl☽'s Reviews > Chalice

Upping my rating from 2 stars to 3 on reread. Chalice is a YA fantasy that has distant echoes of "Beauty and the Beast," a favorite theme of Robin McKinley, but only in the most general sense: a young woman has to figure out how to save a worthy man who is caught in a magical bind.

Mirasol, a beekeeper, is the "Chalice" for the Willowlands demesne. The Chalice is one of the most important roles of the Circle, the group of people endowed with magical powers to protect their land. She binds the land, the people and the Master of the land together. When the Master and the previous Chalice unexpectedly died, the Circle's magic pointed to Mirasol as the next Chalice, though she was totally untrained and unprepared. Most of the Circle aren’t thrilled about Mirasol’s choice, and not inclined to help her adjust and learn her duties as Chalice.

Worse still, the new Master - the younger brother of the one who died, and who had been sent away to become an elemental priest of Fire - is called back to be the new Master, but his experiences of the last several years as a fire priest-in-training have left him dangerously changed. He can burn with a touch, his skin has turned coal-black and his eyes red, and he is barely in touch with this world. No one is at all sure if he'll be able to be an adequate Master of their land, but all of the alternatives seem worse.

It's an odd tale, dreamy and introspective, and a little disjointed. The world-building is hit and miss; McKinley doesn't seem to feel the need to fully explain everything, and she has a way of unexpectedly dropping significant facts (like that Mirasol is physically unable to leave her demesne) in the middle of other discussions. But McKinley's writing is lovely, and the charming details about Mirasol's magical connection with her bees, and how that relates to the story, made Chalice a worthwhile read if you like quieter, pastoral-type YA fantasies.