Sonderbooks Book Review of In the Coils of the Snake

Reviewed May 12, 2005.
Henry Holt and Company, New York, 2005. 231 pages.
Available at Sembach Library (J MCN F DUN).
Sonderbooks Stand-out 2005 (#1, Young Adult Fantasy Fiction)

I had the privilege of getting to read a review copy of the third book in Clare B. Dunkle’s Hollow Kingdom Trilogy, and since it is already available to preorder on Amazon.com, I’m going to go ahead and post my review.

The book opens with the death of Marak, the goblin king, seen through the eyes of Miranda, a girl he brought up to be the perfect wife for his son. However, the day before her destiny is about to be fulfilled, the goblins are contacted by a group of elves with an offer that disrupts all their plans.

Goblins and elves have long been enemies. Can these two groups manage to get along? It turns out that Miranda is a key to that relationship, along with Arianna, a young woman of the elves. Can they learn to see through the eyes of the other?

I think my personal favorite may still be the first of the trilogy because of its love story, but I think that In the Coils of the Snake is the most beautifully crafted of the three books. In it, Clare Dunkle ties together the threads she has woven of goblin and elvish history. She continues with the powerful theme of clashing cultures and learning to see the world through the eyes of another.

There are many parts of this book where the story is told instead of shown, but it fits in beautifully, as the book has all the resonances of a folk tale, of a storytelling. We feel that this is an ancient and powerful tale of what might have really happened to the goblins and the elves.

Reviews of other books by Clare B. Dunkle:
The Hollow Kingdom (Book 1)
Close Kin (Book 2)
By These Ten Bones
The Sky Inside
The House of Dead Maids

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Book Reviews by Sondra Eklund

******In the Coils of the Snake*

Book III in The Hollow Kingdom Trilogy

by Clare B. Dunkle