Title: Purple Prose
Author: John Flanagan
Series: The Ranger’s Apprentice #10.5
In: The Lost Stories (John Flanagan)
Rating Out of 5: 3.5 (Liked this)
My Bookshelves: Australian authors, Easy reading, Medieval fantasy
Pace: Medium
Format: Short Story
Publisher: Random House Australia
Year: 2011
5th sentence, 74th page: ‘Redmont’s Battleschool was one of the best in the country and Will’s assessments were almost always in the ‘Excellent’ range.

Moondarkers, a band of people who lure ships onto rocks so they will crash, are active in Araluen.  It is up to Halt and Will to stop them.

Trying to tell people how deeply you care about them, and what they truly mean to you is difficult under the best of circumstances. Doing so in front of hundreds of others, and in a formal setting? I can’t imagine how horrifying and intimidating that could be. Yet, Will deals with this pressure in a fairly unique way – he becomes so flamboyant with his words that even I, who loves convoluted sentences, found the terms used irritating and difficult.

Although Will spends the entirety of Purple Prose struggling to find the words to tell Horace and Evanlyn how wonderful they are, this isn’t the only tale within the story. After all, a Ranger writing a speech makes a boring tale. However, as a side story, it works quite brilliantly. While Halt and Will struggle to stop ship wreckers, he is constantly plagued by doubt and confusion. The conclusion of their battle is only outweighed by the final creation of a speech that is actually worth listening to.

Image source: Wikipedia