Review: Epic New Fantasy Series
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 04 13, 2014
Practicing their survival skills in the woods, brothers Caran and Tev make a shocking discovery: a corpse. The man was murdered, stabbed in the back with an arrow.As the boys look for clues to the man's identity, they find something clutched in the dead hand."A clear, circular stone was set into a ring of silvery metal embossed with a beautiful pattern. The centerpiece was somehow unearthly, as if it were a polished knob of ice, entrapping a mist within."Caran felt as if he could fall into that center. Vertigo touched him. He shook his head to clear it, and did not look again. He was not superstitious, but had no wish to invite that sensation again."The boys and their father Lorrin take the dead man's belongings and the story to the Baron and the Council. Lorrin is surprised and uneasy when the Baron seems to blame the children for the threat to the Barony's tranquility.When another young man, little more than a child, is found dead with an arrow lodged in his back, the freeholders have tough decisions to make. Should they fight the stealthy enemy, driven by their twisted, supernatural philosophy? Or flee before it's too late?Edwin Hanks' comment is correct. He "uproots" cliché after cliché of the genre. As promised, he offers the reader real people in extraordinary circumstances. As the characters face difficult, life-changing choices, they show both their strengths and their flaws. At the same time, the characters must search their hearts and their heads to decide what is right and what is wrong.