Free Coal: Book One Of The Everleaf Series Ebooks Online
Coal has lived most of his life in the fey realm with his elven best friend, but when a human child he promised to protect unintentionally breaks a law in front of the fey elite, he will have to choose between betraying his best friend or saving the child’s life.
File Size: 3775 KB
Print Length: 218 pages
Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited
Publication Date: June 29, 2015
Sold by: Digital Services LLC
Language: English
ASIN: B00XT3TAB0
Text-to-Speech: Enabled
X-Ray: Not Enabled
Word Wise: Enabled
Lending: Not Enabled
Enhanced Typesetting: Enabled
Best Sellers Rank: #320,659 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store) #82 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Children's eBooks > Fairy Tales, Folk Tales & Myths > Multicultural #468 in Books > Children's Books > Fairy Tales, Folk Tales & Myths > Multicultural #3613 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Children's eBooks > Science Fiction, Fantasy & Scary Stories > Fantasy & Magic
First of all, I want to say that I did not like how Coal was everyone's punching bag in this story. He lost almost every fight he got into and was hopelessly, hilariously outclassed (to rip off a quote from the Avengers movie). What's worse is he was led into thinking he had a chance. I felt for this guy, honestly. But in the end he won his last fight via trickery and guile, so maybe there's hope for him as a warrior. I'm just used to books where the protagonist at least shows some relative competence compared to the opponents around him/her. I hope that Coal kicks some fairy's butt for real in the next book because that was kind of embarrassing to read. Coal didn't even have magic abilities; although the human girl in the story did. he really was on the bottom of every possible totem pole except when it came to character and determination, where he reigned supreme.But if you're going to make a character a punching bag then justify it, do it well and make the reader feel for them and sympathize for them, and Constance Burns does all of that flawlessly. I don't regularly sit down and read a book from start to finish in one fell swoop but Coal's journey from Chalcedony's childhood friend to a refugee and Chalcedony's change from his childhood friend to a crazy despot-to-be had me riveted. In a way it reminded me of Octavia Butler's Kindred novel, the way the child Rufus changed from Alice's friend to a rabid crazy dog of a man. Chalcedony was kind of a Rufus-lite, to give you an idea of how badly she turned out: like Alice, Coal had no agency and, as he discovers while trying to rescue another human that Chalcedony kidnapped, he was a captive of hers.
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐* I received a signed softcover edition of this book through the Goodreads First Reads program.Coal is human and yet he has lived amongst the fey for most of his sixteen years. His best friend also happens to be the "Queenling" of the Everleaf Fey.Coal has always been treated with polite disrespect by the fey; well, by everyone except Chalcedony and the swordsmith Grigory. Most of the fey view humans as either inferior beings or vermin. His friendship with the Queen-To-Be is the only thing that has kept him from being murdered.But, his friendship with Chalcedony is changing. As they both mature into young adults, their once innocent friendship is now seen as suspicious and worthy of scorn.Chalcedony is to become Queen soon. Once she does so, she will be expected to take a mate. That mate cannot be a human or she would be seen as weak in the eyes of the other Fey kingdoms and they would attack.When Chalcedony brings a young human girl into her home Coal vows to keep the girl safe. But, when the girl accidentally breaks the law, she is in danger of being put to death for her crime.Coal then has to decide if he should stay silent and abide by the laws or if he should save the girl and protect her as he had promised to do.When I first saw this book and read the cover I thought I knew exactly how the plot would play out. I figured that it was just another story of human/fairy love and that they would have to fight to have that love recognized. Happily, I was wrong. This story has much more substance than I expected.COAL has quite a few attributes that make it an interesting read. These include:1.
Coal: Book One of the Everleaf Series Coal Trains: The History of Railroading and Coal in the United States Black Beauty: Everleaf Series, Book 0 One Year in Coal Harbor Southern West Virginia: Coal Country (Postcard History Series) Mail Order Bride: A Coal Miner's Widow Finds Love: A Clean and Wholesome Western Historical Romance (Mail Order Brides of Linder Creek Book 6) Loretta Lynn: Coal Miner's Daughter A Coal Miner's Bride: the Diary of Anetka Kaminska (Dear America) Clean Disruption of Energy and Transportation: How Silicon Valley Will Make Oil, Nuclear, Natural Gas, Coal, Electric Utilities and Conventional Cars Obsolete by 2030 Coal: A Human History Advanced Pulverized Coal Injection Technology and Blast Furnace Operation The Palaeontological Association Field Guide to Fossils, Plant Fossils of the British Coal Measures (Palaentology FG Fossils) Producing Liquid Fuels from Coal: Prospects and Policy Issues Interfacial Phenomena in Coal Technology (Surfactant Science) Struggling for Air: Power Plants and the "War on Coal" From Coal to Biotech: The Transformation of DSM with Business School Support Coal to Diamonds: A Memoir The Devil Is Here in These Hills: West Virginia's Coal Miners and Their Battle for Freedom Empires of Coal: Fueling China’s Entry into the Modern World Order, 1860-1920 (Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute) Thunder on the Mountain: Death at Massey and the Dirty Secrets Behind Big Coal
