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Title: On Fortune's Wheel
ISBN: 0689829574
Author:
Cynthia Voigt
Publicate Date: 1999-10-01
Publish: 1999-10-01
List Price: $6.99
Average Customer Rating: 4.5
Format: Mass Market Paperback
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $2.69
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $0.01
Amazon Merchant Price: $6.99
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| Customer Review: |
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1: Another Excellent Kingdom Novel from Voight
A novel of the Kingdom (which is loosely connected to Voight's first and very excellent Kingdom novel "Jackaroo"), On Fortune's Wheel tells the story of Birle, an innkeepers daughter who begins unhappy with her place in the family and looking forward to her escape from the work of the inn by marrying one of the Earl's huntsman.
One night, she discovers a mysterious man who speaks like a lord, taking one of her father's boats. She leaps after him and her real story begins.
Through her decision to save that boat, and eventually stay with the strange thief her life changes forever. She goes from innkeepers daughter to slave in a dangerous southern city on the brink of war, from slave to Alchemist's apprentice, and from their to a place so high no one could imagine it and yet her life will yeild one more change.
To mysterious stanger Orien however, fortune is not so kind. Birle is determined to save him from his fate and return him to his proper place.
This is a story of adventure, intrigue, and love. Cynthia Voight's On Fortune's Wheel is a great read!
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2: A beautiful story of love and courage
From the moment she looks into the deep blue eyes of the young lord she found stealing a boat the previous night, Birle knows she'll love him forever. She's also painfully aware that her love will never be: he's a lord, she, an innkeeper's daughter. Not that it matters anyway, as the lord sees in her only a child. Content just to be with him for the time being, Birle convinces the lord to let her come with him.
For days they travel down the river, Birle's practical skills a valuable asset to help them find food and survive in the wilderness. But as soon as they reach the ocean, they're taken prisoners and separately sold as slaves.
Refusing to accept her lord is lost, Birle searches for him in the unknown city where she's also a slave, risking her life again and again to save him from his brutal master and help him return to their kingdom, even if doing so means she will never be with him.
This is a beautifully told story of love and courage for the romantics at heart.
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3: This book was great!
This book was great. I really hope one day they make a movie of it.
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4: Absolutely awful
Clearly, not many people share my opinion of this book, but I couldn't bring myself to even finish this one. It was probably the worst book I have ever tried to read. One can only take so much of Voigt's undeveloped and tiresome characters, unoriginal storyline and the book's painfully dull structure before giving up on reading it entirely. Birle, the main character, is a colorless and dull Mary-Sue, fated to marry some older man she doesn't love, when she is whisked away by Orien (or was it Oriel? Voigt's choices of names from book to book are way too similar if you ask me) a 19-year-old noble with, apparently, gold-tipped eyelashes and "bellflower eyes." Whatever that means. The flawless, handsome hero of the story, Orien is a noble who is just trying to get away from the pressures of noble life. Wow, you've never heard that one before. Soon Birle has fallen for him and they are escaping to the "Kingdom" together. Predictable, but how can you blame her? The man has gold-tipped eyelashes. That pretty much sums it up.
The book is filled with Birle's annoying, childish musings about oh-so-wonderful Orien, and it just gets tiresome. The ending, which I did read, is just plain weird, and sends a weird message to younger readers. Every time the character's lives are threatened (it happens quite a lot, really) you find yourself rooting for the bad guys. You'd think, for a woman who's written so many books, that the writing style might have a few redeeming qualities, but it's just another disapointment. She writes like a teenager, creating such awkward comparisons as "the conversations fluttered about them like flurries of snow," and so on. Definitely skip this one. It's nothing you haven't heard before, and frankly the few good things about it aren't worth your time.
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5: On Fortune's Wheel
Compelling. Engrossing. Enlightening. These are only a few words that describe Voight's excellent book, `On Fortune's Wheel'. Birle, the main character, is instantly one you can relate to, which makes the development of her character throughout the book even more intimate for the reader. If you are interested in books following the lives of people during the Middle Ages, this book is set in a fictional land of a similar time period, describing the conditions aptly. A tale of love spun into an adventure like no other, "On Fortune's Wheel" is a must read for lovers of all genres.
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