Reading Response: The Singing by Alison Croggon

The main character in The Singing, Maerad, shines apart from main characters of other books. Maerad refuses to be weak and she has determination that runs through thick and thin. As she tries to help save the city of Innail while it fights the the evil ally of the Nameless One, the Landrost, she finds herself close to death. The fear of the encounter changed her attitude. Death so close left an immovable shadow over her.

Maerad has faced dangerous sorcerers and elemental gods, yet she expected those. Though she knew she was heading to a dangerous place (the Landrost's mind) she hadn't come to terms that she could die from it. In Maerad's defense, death is a hard thing to understand and an even harder thing to come to terms with. Even as she found the bodies of others she could never fully accept that they were gone forever.

Maered is just a young girl who has more pressure than she can handle. She is wanted by the powerful Winterking, an evil man without a soul, and many dark sorcerers;she carries the key to the safety or ending of Annar, the treesong, yet she is still undaunted until a nightmare almost becomes reality.

As the nightmare rode the hope was safe

Determined to keep the thing that mattered

As she fought for Annar the hope went away

Wrapped in a blanket of dark she fought sleep