Lynda C. (Readnmachine) reviewed on 10/31/2017 + 1477 more book reviews

Part of Kerr's Deverry and Westlands series (Book 6 of Deverry and Book 1 of Westlands) -- and therein lies the problem. The novel sets up a situation, then leaps back 400 years and works its way back to the "present" over 300+ pages, by which time Fearless Reader has completely forgotten the whole point. And it ends with what is obviously the set up for the next volume.

Set in a well-crafted pseudo-Dark-Age, pseudo-Celtic culture, it brims with humans, wizards, elves, dwarves, gnomes, and faerie folk of all kinds, complicated by some characters' tendency to be reborn in new bodies still carting around at least some luggage from the last incarnation.

It's open-ended high fantasy with all the good and bad that entails -- a sort of "Game of Thrones" minus the sex and dragons. (Although the last paragraph seems to indicate THAT absence may be remedied at some future point.)

Fans of the genre may relish it; dabblers in the genre may find it a bit of a slog, as nothing ever really seems to be resolved in this tale.

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