joined together - Rated 
Latest from veteran science fiction and fantasy writer lois mcmaster bujold, a writer who is always a good read thanks to her skill at creating appealing characters. This is a fantasy story and it appears to be the first volume in a trilogy.
In a remote part of the country in a feudal world a young girl called fawn is running away from her home village. she meets dag, member of a group of sorceror/warriors called lakewalkers, who use swords and magic to deal with evil spirits that create nasty creatures.
Will the two find their destiny?
Will romance blossom between them?
What do you think?
There's nothing wrong with a predictable romance story when the writer is this skilled at creating likeable characters. the prose is very readable and the setting superbly created. you really feel like you're in the countryside with these characters and that evil creatures could be around.
But there's not a lot of plot to this and as a result all that happens whilst being nice character wise isn't the most interesting read. But this is the first volume of a trilogy and the writer has been very good in the past, so because of that I will get volume two. I'm not sure if I would have otherwise
Half a good narrative - Rated 
I confess I'm disappointed by Beguilement. And I'm disappointed unfairly. This isn't a bad book; if it were the first book I read by Bujold I would have thought it good. But for me, against the Chalion sequence this does not measure up. Why not?
This is a novel set against an inventive landscape. It plays with a number of fantasy memes, but original use is made of each of them. The two distinct cultures of the protagonists are fully realised and well drawn, and - barring some questions I have about economic stability over long time periods - believable. All of the characters are well drawn and most are engaging.
Minor details niggle. A farm girl in a semi-literate, pre-industrial agrarian community is an unmarried virgin until she's eighteen - presumably because timid American publishers dare not suggest that people in such societies may have sex younger. A community which has lived for tens of generations within three days easy ride of another, without barriers of war, language, ideology, geography or anything else, nevertheless know virtually nothing of the other's culture. And these cultures have been roughly stable over that period, without interruption of war, pestilence or famine.
On the plus side, this is a world in which real people live. Very believable people. And unlike the vast majority of fantasy fiction, this book is prepared to face human sexuality (and a good number of other human drives) face on.
So why am I disappointed?
This is half a book. I have not yet read the sequel. Although Bujold wrote three books in the Chalion sequence, each stands alone; they are not episodes in a continuous narrative. This is. One episode, which leaves us with every thread dangling unknotted. Again, I don't know whose decision it was to publish this volume and its successor separately, but - unless the successor is a dreadful book, which from this author is unlikely - I'm fairly confident it was a mistake.
Worth reading but not as good as I'd hoped - Rated
Having loved the author's Chalion series, I couldn't wait to read this book. I did enjoy it but couldn't help being a little disappointed by it...
I feel I should start by saying that the fantasy element of the book is interesting but doesn't feature much in it. This is particularly true of the second half which largely consists of domestic family scenes. It would almost be more accurate to call this book a romance story with a bit of fantasy in the background than a romantic fantasy book. I found this refreshing as it is good to see an author trying to take the genre in a new direction, away from all the dragon, wizard, war and prophecy orientated stuff that are around now. I found, however, that the romance was just too sickly and soppy for me. I like a strong romantic element to books (I am a typical girl!), but this one takes it too far in my opinion and I just found it all a bit unbelievable and contrived (the bit with Dag talking about water-lilies was just daft and did she have to call the heroine Fawn?!).
The setting is also refreshingly unconventional for a fantasy book. Most seem to be set in a land resembling medieval Europe, but this world is more like rural America a couple of centuries ago. It is well imagined and described with subtlety.
As with the author's last books, this is written with warmth, wisdom and humour - the dialogue in particular is nice. Unlike the other books though, you pretty much have to read the next book after this one as it only tells half of the story.
Fantasy with a bit of a domestic twist. - Rated 
I love Lois McMaster Bujold's novels, from the high space opera of the Vorkosigan series, to the thought-provoking, world-building Chalion trilogy. "Beguilement" is set in a new world altogether, semi-post-apocalyptic, with the aocalypse being magical rather than nuclear. In a change of direction for the author, the setting is pretty lowly- a farmgirl and Lakewalker (kind of an organised demon-hunter) are the main protagonists, instead of the usual kings, queens and admirals. The story is everything expected from Bujold, with likeable, flawed characters and a rich, inventive world, told with her typical dry humour and driven by her habit of trying to do the worst possible thing to her characters at the worst possible time.
Buy. Read. Love! Then buy her backlist!
A return to form... - Rated
Bujold has always had an excellent eye for character, and for me this is the best thing she's written in a while, on a par with the first Chalion book and the better Vorkosigan novels. It's a character-based fantasy tale, with an excellent love story in it, and a lightly-detailed but original world. Fantasy purists might say that it's a bit short on action and epic scope - and they'd be right - but the quality of the writing is high and if approached with an open mind it's a great read. One to warm the heart on a cold evening. Hurrah for Lois ;)
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