Published: Dec. 26, 2012
Words: 88,894 (approximate)
Language: English
ISBN: 9781301951659

Short description

In a world comprised of three rival kingdoms as different from each other as the families that rule them, Emariya Warren is unique in being a daughter of not one but two of the ruling families.

Extended description

Comprised of three rival kingdoms as different from each other as the families that rule them, The Three Corners is a land divided. Hoping for a better future, Emariya's parents wed, joining two of the three kingdoms in a shaky alliance. But not everyone saw the promise of their union as the blessing it could have been.

“Souls of the stones, their sights we bear
Sounds of the stones, their secrets we share
Will of the soil blood will flow (Read more) Comprised of three rival kingdoms as different from each other as the families that rule them, The Three Corners is a land divided. Hoping for a better future, Emariya's parents wed, joining two of the three kingdoms in a shaky alliance. But not everyone saw the promise of their union as the blessing it could have been.

“Souls of the stones, their sights we bear
Sounds of the stones, their secrets we share
Will of the soil blood will flow
Should three stones one ever know
What once were one split thrice
Over whispers and sights
Soil prevails, behold its might
Blood and stones as one brings darkest night”

Driven by the threat of a little-known prophecy, fearing the combination of the gifted blood flowing through their veins, a rogue group murdered Emariya's mother, not knowing she'd already borne two children who would each bear the gifts of soil and sea.

Her life was nearly over before it started. Hidden under the floorboards while her mother died above her, Emariya escaped certain death then only to go racing toward it now, sixteen years later.

When her father mysteriously vanishes, Emariya is desperate to find him, no matter who she has to turn to for help. Oblivious to her potential gifts and the secrets surrounding her dual heritage, Emariya accepts a proposal of marriage from the prince of a rival land—and the third bloodline—Torian Ahlen. As her tumultuous journey begins, Emariya's eyes open to new truths, leading her to fear the handsome prince waiting for her may desire more than to steal her heart.

Cornerstone is a YA Fantasy with a strong heroine, a crush-worthy hero, and a memorable supporting cast.
(Less)

Tags

magic, betrayal, prophecy, fantasy romance, forbidden love, medieval, strong heroine, ya fantasy, alpha male, souls of the stones

Available ebook reading formats

This book is free. How to download ebooks to e-reading devices and apps.

Format	Full Book
Online Reading (HTML, good for sampling in web browser)	View
Kindle (.mobi for Kindle devices and Kindle apps)	Download
Epub (Apple iPad/iBooks, Nook, Sony Reader, Kobo, and most e-reading apps including Stanza, Aldiko, Adobe Digital Editions, others)	Download
PDF (good for reading on PC, or for home printing)	Download
RTF (readable on most word processors)	Download
LRF (Use only for older model Sony Readers that don't support .epub)	Download
Palm Doc (PDB) (for Palm reading devices)	Download
Plain Text (download) (flexible, but lacks much formatting)	Download
Plain Text (view) (viewable as web page)	View

Reviews

Log-in to write a Review   Log-in to add a Video Review

Review by: sarah uk on June 02, 2013 :
(Source: Downloaded for free from amazon.co.uk.)
16-year-old Emariya has not been thinking about marriage, until her brother Reeve tells her that Prince Torian of the neighbouring land of Thalmas, has asked for her hand in marriage.

At first Emariya refuses, but when she then finds that her father is imprisoned somewhere in the land of Sheas, she travels to Thalmas to meet with Prince Torian, and request that he help her rescue her father in return for her hand in marriage.

There is more at stake that Emariya doesn’t know about though. It seems that the three different lands each had a family who had a special gift – seeing the future, communing with spirits, and being able to harness the earth’s energy. Emariya’s mother had one gift and her father another, making her a second stone, and Price Torian has the third gift. There is a prophecy which says that if all three gifts merge there could be catastophy.
Who is holding Emariya’s father though? Will Torian help her to free him? What of the prophecy surrounding the stones? And can Emariya bring herself to marry someone she doesn’t love for the good of her people?


This was a good YA fantasy novel, and I loved Emariya and her Prince!

Firstly I have to say that I love the name Emariya! So pretty!
Emariya was a sweet girl, and she really felt that she had the power to change things, even if that idea was a little naïve. It was nice how she tried to stand up for what she believed in, and wanted to marry for love. She also wanted to do what was best for the kingdom though, and purposefully tried to find a way to help that didn’t involve her marrying someone she had never even met.

Torian was a great character. Even though Emariya thought that it was his idea to bind the stones, she still found him charming and couldn’t help but like him. I liked him too, and I was really hoping that the two of them would end up together.

My least favourite character was Emariya’s brother Reeve, who seemed quite selfish, and didn’t seem to care who he had to hurt to get what he wanted. He really was a spiteful character, and I really wanted him to get what he deserved.

I liked the storyline in this book, and unlike a lot of fantasy books I didn’t find the plotline difficult to keep up with! I liked the way the three warring areas were described and their reasons for the strife seemed genuine. There wasn’t a lot of romance, but it was obvious the way that Emariya and Torian were drawn to each other.
I liked the ending, although it was left very open for the next book in the series.
Overall; a great first instalment in this YA fantasy series.
7.5 out of 10.
(review of free book)

Review by: llyramoon on May 26, 2013 :
I enjoyed Cornerstone by Kelly Walker. I liked the who-done it addition to a fantasy tale. The story revolves around a young woman and the challenges she faces ranging from politics, a forced betrothal, kidnapping, murder, romance and magic. Despite some typos/writing errors in certain spots the overall writing regarding characters, dialog, scene and storyline were good (but marked down 1/2 point due to these issues as they were distracting to me). The ending was good but I wanted a bit more before book two! :) I'm looking forward to reading the continuation of this saga. Would recommend for young adult readers, fantasy readers and those that like a good tale.

I received this book via LibraryThing.com members giveaway program for the author to receive an honest review. (3.5)
(reviewed long after purchase)

Review by: Ronald Höllwarth on May 05, 2013 :
Wow. What a book. Thanks for sharing Emariya & Co. with us!

First of all I must admit: english isn't the language I was born with. Therefore I may have missed some of the finer lines in the book but to me that didn't matter. I enjoyed the reading very much!

In the first half of the book I had the sense of beeing in control - as reader I knew something about the gifts that the characters didn't know. That made me somewhat sit back and relax - watch the story growing.

But then I found myself without a clue who the one is that seams to pull the strings in the background. IT had been "clear" all the time, but then ... there is a point where the one which should have been the "bad guy" is introduced as a very nice guy and I had the feeling that I missed some part of the book - "as reader I have to be the one that knows the essential things ahead of the characters? That's the way this story is told, or?" - I asked myself. But all searching in the already read pages didn't reveal any hint.
This changed my realtion to the book. I was _in_ the book, thinking and feeling with the characters, standing _beside_ them, looking for clues that lead me back to my comfortable all-knowing-reader position. I had to read almost until the end of the book to regain this position.

Playing with the readers position in such a way that one doesn't realize the shifting is fabulous. It sucked me into the book like no other book did up to now.

Great work!
(reviewed long after purchase)

Review by: Christine Cooney on March 31, 2013 :
I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

The story follows Emariya aka Riya. She’s betrothed to the ruler of an adjacent country in order to unite their people in an upcoming war. Riya has already inherited two powerful magical abilities, one from her father and one from her mother. Her betrothed has the third and last magical ability in the land. But there is word that when these bloodlines merge, something terrible will happen.

The first problem I ran into was the author revealed a lot of names of characters and places in the beginning of the book. I had to stop, grab a pad and pen, and start the book again and write them down as I was losing track of everything. I counted 10 names of people and places in chapter 1 alone. This sort of info dumping usually makes me give up on a book, but I decided to press on. And I have to say I was happily rewarded for it. It’s never revealed who is the culprit/villain in the book until the end. It wasn’t who I was expecting so it was a nice twist. However I wanted more time for the reveal of their motivations. You get a bit of a look into why, and I guess the next book will go farther in that regard. So a plus for a great twist but it left me craving a bit more.

The beginning of the book seemed rough. The story would suddenly drop into details or tangents in the middle of the scene and made me wonder if it was necessary. Like on page 29 the story suddenly describes about where servants lived in the estate of Warren’s Rest. It just seemed out of place, and knowing this information didn’t seem to be needed for the story plot.

My only other complaint was the author using snake descriptions for the character Jaryl. “His dark hair parted over his oily forehead like the forked tongue of a snake poised to attack.” And “Jaryl grinned his snakelike smile.” It just makes me sigh. Either the author is doing a good job trying to incorrectly convince me this guy is bad, or sadly this is being made a bit too obvious.

So to sum up, the ending twist surprised me in a good way. The beginning trudges a little bit. Some things could have used maybe a little polishing, and info spread a bit more out. But later the pace does pick up and the story really begins to flow.
(reviewed long after purchase)

Review by: DiAnna Williams on March 14, 2013 :
I won this delightful read as a give-away on the Memory Clips by Ramona blog. I very much enjoyed this book. I was taken away back in time to a magical place where a young woman who was bestowed the magical gifts of her mother help her steer her own fate despite the challenges ahead of her. A Wonderful flight of fantasy, and with lots going on, so that you never get a chance to get bored! I recommend this read and would most certainly read other stories by this author.
(reviewed within a month of purchase)

Review by: DiAnna Williams on March 14, 2013 :
I won this delightful read as a give-away on the Memory Clips by Ramona blog. I very much enjoyed this book. I was taken away back in time to a magical place where a young woman who was bestowed the magical gifts of her mother help her steer her own fate despite the challenges ahead of her. A Wonderful flight of fantasy, and with lots going on, so that you never get a chance to get bored! I recommend this read and would most certainly read other stories by this author.
(reviewed within a month of purchase)

Review by: DiAnna Williams on March 14, 2013 :
I won this delightful read as a give-away on the Memory Clips by Ramona blog. I very much enjoyed this book. I was taken away back in time to a magical place where a young woman who was bestowed the magical gifts of her mother help her steer her own fate despite the challenges ahead of her. A Wonderful flight of fantasy, and with lots going on, so that you never get a chance to get bored! I recommend this read and would most certainly read other stories by this author.
(reviewed within a month of purchase)
(reviewed within a month of purchase)

Review by: iampeachy on Jan. 31, 2013 :
I won this ebook from www.librarything.com member giveaway in exchange for an honest review.
An engaging story. Riya is a strong and resolved woman, yet vulnerable as well. Enjoyed the story very much.
(reviewed within a month of purchase)

Review by: Cindy B on Jan. 29, 2013 :
**I received this book free in return for a review. The opinions expressed are my own.**

Set in a rural world with magic. I pictured it as being in the 16 century or so, in land like England, but without the cities.

Emariya is a daughter of privilege, bred to take care of her people. Her mother was killed when she was young, but Emariya will find that she has inherited her mother's magical gifts, as well as those of her father. Her people are on the verge of war and she gets a chance to stop it by marrying a prince from a neighboring land. They have never met, but it turns out that there's a prophecy about the such a union. Powerful, but unnamed forces are trying to manipulate them one way or another.

I enjoyed this book, but I did skip ahead now and then. There was a lot of interior monologue and description that cut up the action too much. I'm glad that by the end of the book, the reader has learned who exactly is behind all this. I felt the ending was too abrupt. I will probably read the next book in the series.
(reviewed within a month of purchase)

Review by: Cindy B on Jan. 29, 2013 :
**I received this book free in return for a review. The opinions expressed are my own.**

Set in a rural world with magic. I pictured it as being in the 16 century or so, in land like England, but without the cities.

Emariya is a daughter of privilege, bred to take care of her people. Her mother was killed when she was young, but Emariya will find that she has inherited her mother's magical gifts, as well as those of her father. Her people are on the verge of war and she gets a chance to stop it by marrying a prince from a neighboring land. They have never met, but it turns out that there's a prophecy about the such a union. Powerful, but unnamed forces are trying to manipulate them one way or another.

I enjoyed this book, but I did skip ahead now and then. There was a lot of interior monologue and description that cut up the action too much. I'm glad that by the end of the book, the reader has learned who exactly is behind all this. I felt the ending was too abrupt. I will probably read the next book in the series.
(reviewed within a month of purchase)

Review by: Lauren Padden on Jan. 18, 2013 :
I loved this book, I loved the world it was set it, its characters, her care-free, independent heroine and the twists that kept coming.

This book tells the tale of Lady Emariya who lost her mother as an infant and doesn't know if her father is alive or dead. With things in her kingdom looking bleak and helpless a neighboring prince she's never seen or met, proposes marriage and alliance.

Her journey to improve her kingdom offer twists and turns in her path and her love life and has her questioning which directions to choose while discovering secrets about herself and her family.

I can't wait for the next book to come out!
(reviewed within a week of purchase)

Reason for report:
— Select a reason — Book is or contains spam Book infringes copyright Same content is published elsewhere with different author (for ex., by private-label rights) Duplicate Incomplete work (such as sample or serial) Should be marked adults-only Category is inappropriate Poorly formatted Nudity or other inappropriate content on cover Nudity or other inappropriate visual content in book Inappropriate erotica content Cover image is improper Content is inappropriate Other violation of Terms of Service Other reason not shown above.

Additional details: