Some of you will have read some of my early interviews and blog posts where I talk about how excited I got after reading the first two Twilight books.
I recently found a new epic fantasy series that I really love and I wanted to share it with those of you who have read and loved The Guadel Chronicles. Partly that is because I think it’s a good match taste wise with the Guadel Chronicles, partly it’s because I've enjoyed the series (so far) a ton, and partly it’s because this is exactly the kind of thing that I appreciate all of you fans and super fans doing for my writing. I guess this is me trying to pay it forward a little even though by all appearances Mr. Wells is doing quite well and doesn't really need me cheerleading for him. :)
Without further ado, the series is The Sovereign of the Seven Isles and the first book is titled Thinblade.
Here’s the setup from Amazon:
When second son Alexander Valentine loses his brother to an assassin’s arrow, he discovers that his family protects an ancient secret and reluctantly finds himself at the center of the final battle of a war that was supposed to have ended two thousand years ago.
Pursued by the dark minions of an ancient enemy, Alexander flees to the mountain city of Glen Morillian where he discovers that he is the heir to the throne of Ruatha, one of the Seven Isles, but before he can claim the throne he must recover the ancient Thinblade. Seven were forged by the first Sovereign of the Seven Isles and bound to the bloodline of each of the seven Island Kings in exchange for their loyalty to the Old Law. Each sword is as long as a man’s arm, as wide as a man’s thumb and so thin it can’t be seen when viewed from the edge. Thinblade is the story of Alexander’s quest to find the ancient sword, claim the throne of Ruatha and raise an army to stand against the enemy that has awoken to claim dominion over all of the Seven Isles.
My Thoughts:
I’m not sure why I picked Thinblade up. Frankly I didn’t love the cover and I thought it was probably going to be one of those stories where the ‘magical sword’ was overpowered and ruined the balance of the book. I couldn't have been more wrong!
David A. Wells knows how to tell a story. He’s got a tremendous amount of back story behind the novel, but he doesn't just dump it on you all at once. Nope, instead you get bits and pieces as the story goes on. It leaves you wanting more, which I think is exactly the way to treat back story.
Wells also knows how to balance a world. He’s got magic and magical items scattered all over the series, but none of them felt overpowered to me. Instead I almost felt like a kid at Christmas as I went through the series. I just couldn't wait to see what neat new toy the main characters unwrapped next.
The characters were very believable and three dimensional too. It was just a dang good book.
Here are links to the first book at Amazon. Unfortunately it looks like Mr. Wells has chosen to go exclusive with Amazon. Hopefully he’ll change his mind sometime in the near future and get his books out to all of the other retailers. If you click on the below link and buy I’ll make something like $.06, but I’m putting the affiliate code in there more because I’m curious to see how many people go buy off of my recommendation. Maybe someday I’ll meet Mr. Wells and be able to tell him that I helped grow his reader base by a couple of hundred of the best fans in the world!
--Dean
No comments:
Post a Comment