Definitely entertaining. The story does go a bit fast for me towards the end. And it would be nice if there were some limits to the magic of both Kira and the house. This seems unrealistic. ( )

It took a long time to be certain but ultimately I sadly have to report that this book is just pretending to be decent.
In the end, it turns out that the world-building that initially seems complex and well-thought-out is just a well-disguised pile of stuff the author makes up on the spot. And she doesn't stop with this throughout the story. She arbitrarily invents rules and limitations and later just as arbitrarily discards them as soon as they get in the way. She just has a talent for hiding this strategy behind vagueness and pretends she is just going into more detail when, in reality, she just makes up stuff. Well, of course she is making stuff up, she is writing science fiction after all. But you get my point. The stuff just doesn't fit logically in the same internally consistent universe (or reality).

The second let-down came much sooner which is also why I initially thought the world-building holds water even though it really doesn't.
The book is so preoccupied with bombarding the reader with world-building and exposition that there is barely any time left for on-page relationship-building. Friendships as well as romantic.
The characters spend enough time together to develop these relationships but the reader is not privy to 95% of that so it nonetheless feels like these characters very suddenly develop unnaturally deep attachments to each other. The main romantic relationship is not insta-love precisely but even considering these caveats it comes close. And it is honestly terribly written as well. I can't remember when I last read a less believable relationship.
This kind of thing is much more common with male authors. They invent this incredibly intricate and well-thought-out universe which they are so preoccupied with presenting that they forget about the characters. But the strange thing, in this case, is that neither the characters nor the world-building holds water.
It takes until the third book for our protagonists to reach a point where they actually start to be able to make informed decisions. At least in theory. In practice, it turns out they are all more or less tstl.
The books continually attempt to market superficially profound nonsense as some sort of wisdom about various topics. However, they rarely deliver any genuine insight. Instead, these theories and advice are just as fictitious as the world-building.
The reasoning the characters follow initially seemed like it was surprisingly nuanced and deep but apparently, this was just a smoke-screen as well because as soon as actual logical reasoning is required to guide any kind of decision all of their brains seem to have simultaneously short-circuited or something.
This entire series is just smoke and mirrors trying to imitate a decent sci-fi story and it all falls apart in the third book. ( )

ik heb van dit eerste deel van de serie 'Uncertain Sanctuary' genoten. Het is niet een bijzonder spannend verhaal, maar wel goed leesbaar met wat humor en heel veel verschillende levensvormen erin. Cyborgs, elven, tovenaars, goblins en meer van dat soort creaturen.
Kira Airts doet een beroep op de talenten van een van haar voorouders, Baba Yaga, als ze plotseling moet vluchten voor haar vijanden die haar ouders hebben vermoord. Ze blijkt een formidabele tovenaar te zijn en heeft voor zichzelf een Huis geschapen dat over de werelden kan lopen. Op haar vlucht neemt ze een paar anderen op, waaronder Evander Zami, die haar hoofd van veiligheid wordt.
Kira wil wraak nemen voor de dood van haar ouders en dus moet ze op onderzoek uit. Deel 2 en 3 liggen al klaar. Fijn om te lezen. ( )

Lot of fun reading this trilogy. Human girl with magic family uses it just once with tragic results. She builds her home house and calls it to her. Now she has to learn the rules of this new reality without being crushed by those desiring to control her. Slowly she builds her new family, finding both trust and betrayal along the way. ( )

Lovely. Very interesting universe, with reasonable data dumps as the protagonist figures things out. Very interesting interactions, too - and no (immediate, obvious) romance. ( )