I came across this title on i09 and decided to check it out from the library. What a refreshing read in teen fiction! It appears to be a stand-alone, for one thing, it’s based in non-Western mythos, and the characters are POC! (I just used exclamation points, twice! That’s how excited I am.) I was just bitching about the lack of all of this in epic fantasy on Kate Elliot’s livejournal page. While I don’t think Durst’s book qualifies as epic fantasy, it does breathe some much needed new life into teen fantasy (while the cover does show a girl in a corset, which doesn’t seem too logical for a member of a desert tribe, at least it’s not a girl in a prom dress). The freshness of the novel and its mythology (which was coherent, cognent, and compelling) may have overshadowed some of its defects while reading it. Chief among these are the rapid pace of the plot and the character development. The latter was adequate, but it could have been much better and in turn made this a much deeper novel than it was. Durst’s writing was good, even lovely at times, and her depictions of the desert put me in mind of Nnendi Okorafor (if you haven’t read her yet, WTFN?). While Durst aspired to that level of story-telling, she fell short, mainly because she seemed to focus more on plot than on her characters. This is odd, since her plot is to collect characters, essentially. On the whole, I really enjoyed Vessel and would highly recommend it if you’re a bit tired of the normal teen fantasy fare.

"Liyana has been trained since birth as a vessel, a chosen one whose body will be taken over by the goddess Bayla so that the rains will come and sustain her people. When the ceremony to call Bayla fails, Liyana's tribe considers her unworthy and abandons her to die in the desert... but a trickster-god, inhabiting the body of a boy named Korbyn, finds her and reveals that his kindred have been kidnapped, and Liyana must help him rescue them. With its vividly imagined setting that's sure to fascinate fans of great world-building, Vessel is a stirring and thought-provoking read full of myth and magic." Teen Scene November 2012 newsletter http://www.nextreads.com/Display2.aspx?SID=5acc8fc1-4e91-4ebe-906d-f8fc5e82a8e0&N=565687

Wonderful book -- should be up for international awards. And it wraps up in a single volume, complete with horses and an emperor and sandworms and a brave young woman. Highly recommended.