Description/Blurb:

The Living Light that sustains Arlethia is dwindling.

An unknown, vicious enemy approaches in stealth from beyond the northern glaciers, a wasteland of ice that spans hundreds of miles. A clandestine brotherhood of assassins, held in check by the Light for millennia, seeks to break their maledictive shackles and unleash their bloodlust upon the world. Those that should stand with Arlethia clothe themselves in betrayal, desiring her secrets for themselves, leaving Arlethia to stand alone.

The rebirthing of lands ceased decades ago. The world of Våleira is dying. Only Arlethia, the Western Province of the Realm, remains untainted by the Ancient Dark’s Influence. Reign, the young daughter of Arlethian Lord Thannuel Kerr, becomes entangled in a perilous web of deceit, greed, and assassination plots after witnessing something horrific – something that will destroy all she knows and loves. As threats culminate, she and her twin brother, Hedron, must battle demons on every side – both external and internal – in their efforts to save Arlethia from extinction, as they simultaneously reach for their own personal redemption. But they have become pariahs to their own people. There will be few that dare to stand with them in the dimming Light – and even fewer that will survive.

The world of Våleira cannot endure without Arlethia. And the Living Light is fading …

Review 4 of 5 Stars

I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Luckily, I really liked it. The blurb does a good job of giving you the feel of the book so I’m not going to go into a lot of story detail.

The story was fascinating and original. The writing was tight, aside from some minor typos, missing words, etc. in the version I was provided. I’m still catching up on my backlog so that was quite a while ago and those issues may have been fixed. Nevertheless, the story was engaging and I cared about the characters and what was happening to them. This is the beginning of a trilogy according to the author and I’m interested enough that I’ll be reading the next book in the series.

There is a great war between those of the Living Light and the Darkness on Valeira. The Arlethians were especially interesting to me and by the end I was truly hoping for the best. The author has a lot of story to tell and things get pretty complex, but on the whole I think he did a very good job. The book is just a little over 600 pages. Unfortunately, I’ve been pretty busy and it took me almost two weeks to read it.

However, the length of time it took me to read it doesn’t speak to the quality of the book. Whenever I found myself with some free time, it came readily to mind. The action sequences throughout the book are done well and there’s a great deal of explanation about the past of this world. I enjoyed all of it. He did a great job of world building and I found it hard to put this story down when I needed to. I hope you have the chance to enjoy this book as well. I suspect we will see other equally engaging stories from this author in the future…at least I hope we will.