Holiday Sale! Get an annual membership for 20% off!

Book Summary and Reviews of The Singing by Alison Croggon

The Singing by Alison Croggon

The Singing

The Fourth Book of Pellinor (Pellinor Series)

by Alison Croggon

  • Readers' Rating:
  • Published:
  • Feb 2009, 496 pages
  • Rate this book

About this book

Book Summary

The climactic volume of the epic quartet follows the Bards of Edil-Amarandh on a vital quest to merge their powers against a nameless evil.

In an increasingly battle-ravaged land, Maerad, Cadvan, and Hem desperately search for one another as they make their separate journeys. The Black Army is advancing north, and even as Maerad faces a mighty confrontation with the Landrost to save Innail, all of the Seven Kingdoms are threatened with bitter and devastating defeat. Yet in Maerad and Hem lives the secret to the mysterious Singing, and legend holds that if they release the music of Elidhu together, they have the power to defeat the Nameless One. Can brother and sister find each other in time to fight this all-powerful enemy, and are they strong enough — even reunited — to defeat him before all is lost?

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

Media Reviews

"Starred Review. Sonorous motifs and resonant archetypes form the backbone of this series conclusion ... Start with the first book (The Naming, 2002)." - Kirkus Reviews.

"From the refinement of character development to the dramatic portrayal of impending doom, the clearly written narrative creates a fitting conclusion to this epic high-fantasy series. Grades 7-12. " - Booklist

Z"While not a starting point for new readers, fans of the series will enjoy seeing the final stage of Maerad's transformation from a slave to her world's savior, and they will once again be drawn into this complex and gripping tale." - School Library Journal

This information about The Singing was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Reader Reviews

Write your own reviewwrite your own review

Lupe

Amazing Series
I read this entire series in less than a month! All four books are rather large but once I started reading I could not stop. I made my mom, sister and aunt all read the series too and they read it about as fast as I did. It is a truly epic tale about a girl and her brother as they struggle to survive and fulfill their destiny. If u could I would make everyone read this incredibly amazing series, I cant even think of another more popular series to compare it to. :)

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Author Information

Alison Croggon

Alison Croggon was born in 1962 in South Africa. When she was four, her English parents returned home, and then migrated to Australia when she was seven, where she has lived ever since.

Croggon trained as a journalist on the Melbourne Herald and is the interna­tionally acclaimed author of numerous poetry collections and plays. Her first book of poems, This is the Stone, won the 1991 Anne Elder and Dame Mary Gilmore Prizes. Her novella Navigatio was highly commended in the 1995 Australian/Vogel literary awards. Her second book of poems, The Blue Gate, was shortlisted for the Victorian Premier's Poetry Prize. Attempts at Being was shortlisted for the Kenneth Slessor Poetry Prize in the NSW Premier's Literary Awards and was also nominated for a Pushcart Prize in the US.

The Gift, the first book in Alison's acclaimed young adult fantasy series The Books of Pellinor, was shortlisted for two Aurealis Awards for Excellence in Australian Speculative Fiction and named a 2003 CBCA Notable Book. The series has since been released to critical acclaim in the US, the UK and Germany.

Alison is a Melbourne theatre critic for The Australian, and keeps a respected blog of theatre criticism, Theatre Notes. She is married to playwright Daniel Keene, lives in Melbourne and has three children.

Follow Alison at http://www.alisoncroggon.com/

More Author Information

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

More Recommendations

Readers Also Browsed . . .

more YA fantasy, sci-fi, speculative, alt. history...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket: Before the Mango Ripens
    Before the Mango Ripens
    by Afabwaje Kurian
    Set in 1971, this work of historical fiction begins in the aftermath of an apparent miracle that has...
  • Book Jacket: Margo's Got Money Troubles
    Margo's Got Money Troubles
    by Rufi Thorpe
    Forgive me if I begin this review with an awkward confession. My first impression of author Rufi ...
  • Book Jacket: Our Evenings
    Our Evenings
    by Alan Hollinghurst
    Alan Hollinghurst's novel Our Evenings is the fictional autobiography of Dave Win, a British ...
  • Book Jacket: Graveyard Shift
    Graveyard Shift
    by M. L. Rio
    Following the success of her debut novel, If We Were Villains, M. L. Rio's latest book is the quasi-...

BookBrowse Book Club

Book Jacket
The Berry Pickers
by Amanda Peters
A four-year-old Mi'kmaq girl disappears, leaving a mystery unsolved for fifty years.

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    Pony Confidential
    by Christina Lynch

    In this whimsical mystery, a grumpy pony must clear his beloved human's name from a murder accusation.

Who Said...

A library is a temple unabridged with priceless treasure...

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

F the M

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.