Bramble is impetuous, with a talent for attracting trouble, and she finds it when an accident brands her a criminal. But she can expect no mercy. Her dark colouring marks her as a Traveller, one of the despised original people of the domains. And the local gods are warning her to flee
In Turvite, where ghosts drift along dark, cobbled streets, Ash must leave the Road to begin an apprenticeship with the only person who will accept a Traveller. His new mistress is devious yet irresistible, but the gods have other plans for Ash
Death casts Bramble and Ash on separate journeys across valleys and mountains, deep into themselves and the dark history of their ancestors. The gods have not forgotten, and old blood is calling for vengeance.
From Publishers Weekly
This complex trilogy opener, YA author Freeman's first book for adults, describes the Eleven Domains, a landscape littered with prophecies, gods and ghostly warnings. Saker, a wealthy and callous enchanter's apprentice, seeks to avenge his family's massacre. Bramble, gifted with a connection to animals and woodcraft, kills a warlord's man in self-defense and must flee her home. Nervous young guard Ash trains to become an assassin and endures his beloved mentor's exploitation of his necromantic abilities. When Saker's vengeance-seeking walking dead roam the land, Ash must find ways to stop them as Bramble seeks to protect the people they threaten. Freeman shies away from simplistic morality, building elegantly well-rounded charactersmost notably Bramble, who manages to be tough but not hard, a loner but not unsympathetic and sexual but not obsessed with romanceand interwoven stories that at times draw too heavily on George R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire novels for inspiration. (Apr.)
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Review
An impressively different fantasy novel Sydney Morning Herald 'There is nothing predictable about Freeman's storytelling. There are plenty of twists along the way, and by the end of the novel I was completely hooked' Good Reading Magazine
Library : Fantasy
Formats : EPUB
ISBN : 9780748129515