Grizelda

Grizelda  by Margaret Taylor
I read this as a smashwords book that I got free from Barnes and Noble for my nook.

Grizelda is a teenage seamstress who was found orphaned after the war between the people of Corvain and the ruling Auks, at the age of 3. She was given her name, meaning "grey", because it was the color of her hair.  She is taken in and as the story begins is working as a seamstress.  That is, until the night she is arrested on a complaint of sorcery, which along with her witchy grey hair, gets her thrown into dungeon prison.  

I'm really so incredibly meh about this book.  The story isn't bad, and it's told fairly well. But.  I think the story really could have been told better.  There are main characters with big chunks of the story dedicated to them that go absolutely nowhere.  It read like the beginning of a story and not like a self-contained story.  There was way too much hemming and hawing about whether or not Grizelda is dangerous, or if she was practicing sorcery, and the reveal was kind of a let down. I couldn't understand why Taylor would make such a nonevent be made to seem suspenseful.  

On the plus side, this self-published book is one of the best edited that I've read so far. The grammar was sound, the words were spelled properly, the tenses agreed and the names all stayed the same. As far as self-published books go, this one was head and shoulders above many that I've read.  

I really do wish that I could have liked this book more.  Taylor's imagination is certainly fertile enough to come up with the building blocks of a good story, she just needs some practice with the construction.   I would be interested in seeing how any of her future books turn out.  I think she's got promise.