Wild Isle Review:

WARNING! INEVITABLE SPOILERS BELOW!

C.L. Carhart’s Arcane Gateway, book one of the His Name Was Augustin series, is a cross blend of urban/modern fantasy and fantasy romance. Our protagonist and narrator is Swanie (Swanhilde) Thaden, one of many Teutonic-blooded descendants living in Munich, Germany (and abroad). Arcane Gateway describes the formative events of Swanie’s late childhood and early adulthood, roughly from the ages of thirteen to twenty-two. During this time, Swanie is challenged by her forbidden affections for her father’s accountant—who also happens to be a Teutonic priest more than twice her age—and her desire to gain mastery and knowledge of her Teutonic heritage and the elemental magic with which it imbues her.

Also, she finds the Torstein, an ancient-artifact-time-travel-stone made by the blood of a demon (ok, I don’t know if it was the demon’s blood, but sounded good in my head). We’ll come back to this, but first, let’s break down the review format.

Unlike my previous indie author book reviews, in which I discuss the books strengths and then its weaknesses, I’m going to discuss Arcane Gateway in three sections: (1) what I think the author was going for; (2) how well the author executed on those intentions; and (3) how might the author have better achieved what she intended (when applicable). I’ll be applying this analytical form to the major literary elements, those being prose, setting, plot, and characters (but not theme, because it would require its own essay).

Starting with the prose, or the style in which the book is written, Carhart does excellent work in this regard. Reading this book of hers alone, it stands out as her strongest trait. It is clear that Arcane Gateway is meant to be a blend of literary-level prose mixed in with the less-mature voice of our narrator, Swanie. Given that this story is written in first person past tense, that is a perfectly suitable choice for a novel thick with romantic tension. However, in application, the transition between these two narrative voices is neither smooth nor consistent. This is a problem for a few reasons, not least because the conceit of the novel is that it is an older, more mature Swanie writing her autobiography for her son. That isn’t so believable when the expository narration switches on a dime from (relatively) high-diction to late-teens jargon. A solution to this issue would have been to create a hard line between the narration and all of Swanie’s dialogue and thoughts. This would provide a level of consistency which would keep the reader in a suspension of disbelief about the fact that this novel is supposed to be a personal history for Swanie’s son. Additionally, the consitent contrast would allow the reader to see how much Swanie will mature by the end of the saga—that will become important as we discuss the plot.

But before we talk about plot, let’s mention the setting. I say mention because, like most modern/urban fantasy I’ve encountered, the setting takes a back seat (which is a natural and useful function of setting a story in familiar modernity). Now, that is not to say that Carhart does not take Swanie to noteworthy or scenic locations. She does. However, I don’t get the impression that we’re meant to focus on those locations much. I say this because I remember the characters’ outfits more than I recall Munich, the Thaden house (not really described until near the end of the book), or the location of the Teutonic festival. This is all to say that the setting doesn’t get in the way, and I don’t think the author wanted it to, so no real criticisms on this front.

Which brings us to the plot. What I believe Carhart wanted to achieve was a long-form set up for her series as a whole. In other words, it seems to me that she intended Arcane Gateway to be the “exposition” of her HNWA saga, almost like the whole novel is one long introduction to the central conflict. If this was indeed her goal, Carhart certainly accomplished it; however, it would have been better had she not. While the idea sounds workable in an outline, it does not translate into a good reader experience. The problem revolves around the related elements of tension and pacing. Tension is created in relation to some conflict which puts something valuable to the protagonist at stake, and pacing is how “quickly” or “slowly” the confliction resolution occurs or progresses. In Arcane Gateway—a fantasy romance novel, meaning that the central conflict revolves around romantic tension—the central conflict is pushed beyond the end of the book. That is to say that the real inciting incident which spurs the plot into motion doesn’t happen until after Arcane Gateway’s end (the relationship with Augustin). This has the effect of bleeding the story of tension and of slowing the pacing to a grind while simultaneously making each time jump feel as fast and enormous as a swath of heat lightning. Each chapter reads like “things happening,” but none seem to move the reader towards anything in particular. Nothing really seems at stake, and so the reader becomes apathetic to Swanie (even when she suffers from a terrible sexual assault—again, we’ll come back to this).

Fortunately (or perhaps unfortunately), all that would need to change in Arcane Gateway to resolve the plot issues is for there to be more romance injected into the story (not just pining thoughts). Specifically, Swanie and Hans ought to have become intimately involved. Why? Because the risk in and taboo of such a relationship would have given Gateway its own central conflict—Swanie navigating an unworkable relationship, hiding it from some, dealing with discouragement and encouragement from others, and being confused internally. This would have synergized greatly with Swanie’s dependence on Hans for her Teutonic development, and the natural conflicts that might arise with hiding it from her father and Lady Muniche would have carried the tension through the whole book without needing to change any particular events.

I could go on about plot, but this review is already long enough, and I must discuss the characters.

For this review, for brevity’s sake, I’m going to limit my discussion of character to Swanie. It is my impression that Swanhilde is meant to be a flawed character with a lot of room for growth. In principle, this is good, and I interpreted her character flaws as purposeful on Carhart’s part, those flaws being: Swanie’s rich-bitch snobbishness; her egoistic obsession with power, racial purity, and the Torstein; and her lack of ability to empathize with other characters. Note, these flaws are all perfectly fine for a character to have. Any flaw, really, is an acceptable trait for a character to grow from (or suffer tragedy because of). However, in Arcane Gateway, Swanie does not seem to grow out of her flaws within the first book. She is set up to mature out of them, but because this first novel is functionally the extended exposition of a larger story, she never encounters a central conflict requiring significant character growth on her part. Just about the only trait that changes in Swanie is her ability to wield Teutonic magic.

This lack of personal growth has serious consequences on the story as it is contained within Arcane Gateway. Swanie never has to grow as a person, and therefore she never faces an obstacle which she cannot overcome (either through magic or by plot-contrivance, which, lacking a clear plot, becomes mere contrivance). In a romance novel, that means the obstacles—mostly other characters—emerge and are resolved unnatually. In the case of Swanie, her actions and emotional responses to events become divorced from something representative of reality. I feel that I am obliged to justify this claim with an example, and so I reference Swanie’s reactions and thoughts upon being raped in her dorm room. Swanie’s first reaction is to use her Teutonic magic in order to obtain revenge. After this, she proceeds to advance her interest in the Torstein and plans for time travel essentially unhindered. This bring us to discuss the other characters’ reactions in regard to our protagonist. No one responds to Swanie’s rape in a reasonable way, and this is because if they did, it would move the story away from its purpose as expository set up for future books. For instance, Beth ought not to have been open at all to discussion about time travel that night immediately after Swanie suffered her assault. Her Father certainly wouldn’t have been so lax keeping an eye on her after that, and Hans would likely have taken the Torstein and not returned it (as it was nearly stolen as a secondary consequence of the attack).

These issues, being after-effects of plot issues, would be solved if the conflict of Arcane Gateway was more greatly focused on Swanie’s and Hans’s relationship. Because the romance amounted to pining-after and longing-for, and nothing of any real consequence, there was no natural narrative impulse to have Swanie grow as a person. Had she encountered the complications of a secret, magic-infused, intimate relationship, then she’d have had to overcome some amount of her snobbishness (Hans is her father’s employee, in a sense, of lower social status to her), her egoism (considering Han’s needs and desires; and maybe she’d understand her freind Ina’s situation better as well), and her obsessiveness with purity and power (perhaps actually having to recover from the trauma of being raped. Did that harm her blood purity? Not in Gateway, but maybe it would have if that impacted her relationship prospects with Hans and others).

In sum, Arcane Gateway is well composed for the most part, and it shows the author’s potential (a potential likely already surpassed by the time of the writing of this review, as book five in this series has already been published). The setting, mostly in Germany, is interesting and just rich enough with Teutonic lore that it doesn’t ever feel like reading a history book. In theory, this first book sets up a larger plot arc for the saga as a whole, as well as setting up the significant developmental milestones for her character development. In execution, Gateway misses the mark on these two last points, though the story, as told, comes very close to a solid plot structure that would have guided the character’s into a quite interesting romantic conflict. This bodes well for the future books in this series, which, if my impressions are correct, will not suffer these same issues, as the real plot and conflict of the series should be incited by then.

Final thoughts: Arcane Gateway is very much a debut novel, one which needed more romantic conflict at the heart of its story structure. Given that my critiques ought not carry on to the subsequent novels, I recommend those interested to try starting with book two first (perhaps reading Gateway later as if it were a prequel). But if you disagree, you can grab a copy of Arcane Gateway and read for yourself by clicking the cover art above. As for me, I’m hoping to see Carhart’s improvements in HNWA book two, Mystic Passage.