The Last Gatekeeper – Katy Haye
*Warning – may contain spoilers*
Author: Katy Haye
Publisher: Smashwords
First published: 2014
Edition: eBook
Pages: 233
Blurb: (Taken from
Goodreads)
Two
worlds. One queen determined to rule both. And one teen girl who stands in her
way.
Zanzibar MacKenzie knows she’s a
freak. She has EHS – electrical hypersensitivity – which leaves her trying to
live a Stone Age life in the twenty-first century: no internet, no phone, no
point really.
On her seventeenth birthday she
discovers the truth: she can’t stand electricity because she’s half-fae, and
her mixed-blood makes her the only person on Earth able to control the gates
that link the fae and human worlds.
With the help of Thanriel, an
angel charged with keeping the worlds in balance, and Cal, an exiled fae, Zan –
the girl who can’t flip a light switch – must now learn to control the
elemental powers she never knew she had in order to defeat a queen bent on
destruction.
History of my copy: I was given a free
copy of The Last Gatekeeper through
YA Bound Book Tours in exchange for an honest review.
The idea behind The
Last Gatekeeper is ingenious. I thoroughly enjoyed the story and, for the
most part, how it was executed. However, some bits were laughable, including Thanriel.
I couldn’t take anything involving him seriously. He felt entirely unnecessary and
only included to create a love interest. This was a shame as it single-handedly
ruined what had the potential to be a fantastic book.
Plot: The Last Gatekeeper follows Zanzibar, a girl who discovers that she
is half-Fane and is the last gatekeeper alive. She, with the help of Cal,
Thanriel and some Fane rebels, must close the three remaining gates on Fane to
stop the Queen from destroying Earth.
The
problem is, up until her 17th birthday, she didn’t even know Fanes
existed. So, on top of saving the world, she must discover who she is and what
she can do.
Setting: On the whole, Haye is great at
describing the setting and what is going on. She contrasts Earth and Fane well
and does some great world-building without drowning the reader with
information. It is certainly a world I would love to visit again.
Characters: Zan is actually pretty cool
for a lead character and doesn’t suffer much from the ‘I must be a super
powerful female’ that ruins many YA books. Although her Fane power does happen
to be pretty powerful, she stays grounded. Right from the beginning, she is an
outsider and seems to cope well with that. She takes the responsibility of
saving the world but stays human and relatable throughout the whole journey.
Cal is another intriguing
character although I saw that he was the Queen’s son from the moment we first
met him, so that was rather predictable. I would love to read about how he
turned against his mother and how he ended up exiled as I sense that there is a
fantastic story behind it all.
Thanriel is the other main
character, a Talvarine who Zan falls in love with uncharacteristically quickly,
and who ends up fathering Zan’s child. The whole Thanriel-Zan thing was utterly
ridiculous and unnecessary and I just couldn’t help but laugh whenever they
were together. Perhaps he will have a use in the series besides being a love
interest, but for now I’m not sold.
To read or not to
read: Read. Although the romance
brought my rating down quite a bit, The
Last Gatekeeper is otherwise a fantastic story and a must read. Without
Thanriel and the stupid twist that Zan ends up pregnant, it would be a 5 star
but, unfortunately, the romance is just too strong, resulting in a mere 3
stars.
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