10/31/2022
Cain’s (Devoid of Grey) dark fantasy novel is a tender testimony to the power of love, sacrifice, and family. Carefree fisherman Finn is one of the Feah—a race of winged humanoids living in unison with nature and led by a chief druidess. At twenty-five, Finn’s seeing friends settling down into married life and can’t help but feel left behind, particularly when Kyran, a young man whose company he's frequently enjoyed, breaks the news of his own marriage plans. But fate has something bigger in store for Finn, in the guise of a powerful human army, the Dayigan, who pose a sinister threat to Finn and his kind.
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
