The Innkeeper's Song by Peter S. Beagle Review

Book begins with two lovers, Tikat and Lukassa, standing on a bridge looking at the river. The railing breaks and Lukassa falls into the river and disappears. Knowing that his love is dead, Tikat mourns for his loss.

Then one day, a black woman appears at the edge of the river singing a strange song. All of a sudden, Lukassa's body emerges from the river and is revived. The black woman puts a ring on Lukassa's finger and takes Lukassa away with her. Tikat saw all of this and goes after them to get his love back.

My thoughts on the book:

I was eager to start this book because I really love Beagle's The Last Unicorn. Unfortunately, I did not like this book at all.

It starts off very interesting. I was intrigued with Lukassa coming back from the dead and was wondering who the black woman was. I even rooted for Tikat as he chased after them and I hoped that he would reclaim his love back. But all of this is just the prologue and it all changes once the story begins.

Okay...what is the story? There is so much going on. The back of the book says that this is about a young boy named Tikat who is searching for his love, but instead I was confused as to what the plot really was in the book. Was it about Tikat looking for Lukassa? Was it about Lal, the black woman, who is in search of her master? Is it about Nayateneri as she tries to run away from people who want to kill her and joins forces with Lal? Is it about the wizard on how he cheats death? Or is it about the people at the Inn? I was completely confused.

What made it really challenging was that each chapter is told by a different character and there's at least eight different point-of-views. By having a different character for each chapter was suppose to help you see different sides of the plot, but instead it made it really difficult to stay focused. Also, I did not connect with any of the characters. Because the characters were always switching, I felt like I really didn't get a chance to get to know them. It was quite frustrating infact.

Overall, I was greatly disappointed if not angry with this book. This book does show Beagle's wonderful writing skills but unfortunately everything did not go well together. I found myself tossing the book across the room when I read the last chapter.