Lightlark

Lightlark is a romantic fantasy, or a “romantasy,” meaning that it adheres to several familiar romance tropes while also offering readers the in-depth world building common to fantasy novels (Sager, Clare. “Living the Romantasy: Genre Tropes in Romantic Fantasy.” Indie Author Magazine, 1 April 2022). Like many fantasy heroes, Isla is an orphan with a big destiny. She must save her people from their generations-long curse and ultimately from a nefarious magician who wants to dominate all of Lightlark. Along the way to these goals, Isla is involved in several self-contained episodes in search of items like the skin gloves, the Sunling clothing, and the bondbreaker—items that could be qualified as MacGuffins in that they have little significance other than to drive the plot. Lightlark itself demonstrates many common characteristics of fantasy settings: It is host to fantastical creatures, a complicated magical system, and several groups of people with distinct magical characteristics—akin to the “races” found in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings series (The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, Return of the King) and its many literary descendants, like George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series (A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, A Storm of Swords, A Feast for Crows, A Dance With Dragons).

Conventions of the genre control the relationships between the characters and much of their self-definition. Like many romantasies, Lightlark is told exclusively from a female perspective. Isla’s internal world—whom she loves and hates, what she thinks about herself and others—dominates the narrative. Like many young adult novels, this one is also a bildungsroman, or coming-of-age story. Isla starts the novel as an ingenue: an innocent, unsophisticated young woman who is sheltered from the world by her controlling guardians. She has been taught to trust no one and to always place the needs of her kingdom ahead of her own desires. She must overcome these deficits and leave behind her sheltered childhood to become a fully-fledged leader of her community. Isla is very beautiful, and the novel dwells on descriptions of her court gowns, each more elaborate and revealing than the last. However, Isla herself doesn’t value her beauty as much as she values her other qualities; she longs to be seen for those qualities instead of her appearance. In keeping with contemporary romance tropes, Isla is smart, capable, and determined enough to save herself and her friends, although she also needs rescuing from time to time.

Love triangles are common staples of romantic fiction, and Lightlark includes two love interests for Isla, splitting the “dark brooding” type into two: Grim, a wicked bad boy who is flirtatious and charming, and Oro, the rule-bound golden boy who is prickly and self-contained. Aster includes a meet-cute between Isla and each man. Oro’s happens when Isla is singing on her balcony and accidentally falls; he rescues her from the ocean, saving her life. Shortly after, Isla encounters Grim at the local market, and they have what amounts to a date, with Grim showing Isla around and buying her chocolate. While Isla starts the novel disliking both men for different reasons, she is repeatedly thrown into close quarters with them. Aster peppers the narrative with descriptions of the men’s bodies and faces. Isla experiences physical sensations of attraction and longing for both men, even if—as an inexperienced young woman—she cannot immediately identify what these feelings are.

Aster creates a dark and unusual twist on the “hidden identity” trope near the end of the novel, as Grim reveals that he and Isla have actually been lovers before. He’s magically taken Isla’s memory of their relationship, a violation of her consent. After this betrayal, Isla recognizes her feelings for Oro: “Love was a strange thing. She wanted him in so many ways. Had for a while, though she had tried her best to deny it. More than anything, she trusted him. Was that the basis of love?” (406) Isla loves Oro because she can trust him, but Grim still occupies her thoughts, and she gets a message from him promising that they will be together again. As such, Lightlark doesn’t end with a typical romance “happily ever after” but ends with a “happy for now”—one that, in another common characteristic of the genre, signals the possibility of sequels to come.