The Mountains of Instead

Championing fiction as an escape from pandemics, politics and bad TV.

I Am Not Yet Born; Forgive Me (review: Quintana of Charyn by Melina Marchetta)

Quintana of Charyn Melina Marchetta Viking Australia 2012

Quintana of Charyn is the third and final book of the Lumatere Chronicles and this review contains spoilers for both Finnikin of the Rock and Froi of the Exiles. You have been warned.
Shot through with arrows, Froi of the Exiles awakes to find…
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Sing What Was Lost and Dread What Was Won (Review: Froi of the Exiles by Melina Marchetta)

Froi of the Exiles           Melina Marchetta Candlewick Press 2011
Froi of the Exiles is the second title in The Chronicles of Lumatere. As such, this review contains spoilers for book one in the series, Finnikin of the Rock. You have been warned.
Three years have passed since the events of Finnikin …
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Blue Remembered Hills (review: Finnikin of the Rock; M. Marchetta)

Finnikin of the Rock Melina Marchetta Candlewick Press 2011 (paperback)
When Finnikin was just a boy, he stood on the Rock of Wonders and pledged to save his kingdom, Lumatere.Not long afterwards, his land was invaded, factions massacred and his father lost to him.Homeless, he has travelled through di…
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Almost, At Times, The Fool (Review: The Piper's Son by Melina Marchetta)

The Piper's Son Melina Marchetta Candlewick Press 2011
Tom is a man floundering. From an erstwhile inseparable family and indomitable group of friends, he finds himself seeking oblivion – something he's been finding pretty successfully for the last year. When a knock on the head unwillingly …
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Into my heart, an air that kills... (Review: Jellicoe Road)

Jellicoe Road
Melina Marchetta
Harper Teen


My father took one hundred and thirty two minutes to die. 
‘I counted. 
‘It happened on the Jellicoe Road. The prettiest road I’d ever seen, where trees made breezy canopies like a tunnel to Shangri-La. We were going to the ocean, hundreds of kilometres away, b…
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