“Cain crafts a vivid world ... rich with detail and myth-lore that traipses brightly through the darker themes.” (BookLife Reviews)
“This is a wonderfully written novel, a tear-jerker and page-turner. I highly recommend...” (Queer Sci Fi)
Finn, a young fisherman living in a Celtic-like village, soon finds his tranquil life shattered when he's caught in the arms of another man by soldiers of a twisted church. The Dayigan soldiers frame Finn for murder and seek to destroy his entire people, believing them to be wicked.
Thrust into a world of violence and chaos, Finn embarks on an epic quest to find a powerful relic crafted by dark faeries that can protect his people from certain death.
As he travels through this chaos-filled world, Finn must resist succumbing to its darkness and brutality in order to save his beloved Feah lands. The fate of an entire nation rests upon the shoulders of one brave young man—will Finn be able to harness the perilous magic without losing himself in the process, or will his people perish?
Contains adult material including adult activity, harsh language, and intense violence.
When Finn finds himself wrongly accused of murder by a Dayigan soldier, he's forced to flee the only home he’s ever known, desperately seeking the Feah’s previous Chief Morgana, who he hopes can save his kind from the religiously fervent, xenophobic, and intolerant Dayigans. Finn, a flawed young man, doesn’t stop from blundering forward to do what’s right, no matter the cost to himself, and he’s joined by a small army of elegantly drawn secondary characters, including his brother, Cal, and standout Laisren, a childhood friend and son of Morgana who develops a gentle, and welcome, romance with Finn—a relationship that adds tenderness to the story’s otherwise vicious foundation.
Cain crafts a vivid world built around coming-of-age and man-vs-self tropes, a world rich with detail and myth-lore that traipses brightly through the darker themes of oppression and suffering. The Feah stand to lose everything, and Cain’s painstaking examination of the characters’ mental states gives readers a window into their anguish at the cost to protect their way of life. Depicting the brutal Dayigans as blatant, Christianity-derived acolytes may be off-putting to some readers, but that discomfort only serves to spark deeper reflection on the story’s nuances.
Takeaway: A dark fantasy embodying the power of love and sacrifice.
Great for fans of: Mercedes Lackey; Emily Lloyd-Jones’s The Drowned Woods.
Production grades
Cover: A
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: NA
Editing: A
Marketing copy: A
