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The son of two famous knights, Vandelas Kronas lives a quiet life in the countryside of the village of Russalin. On the day of his ninth birthday he is celebrating with his family and one of his few friends when a mysterious villain kills him with an ax to exact revenge on his mother Victoriah. Mysteriously, despite dying, Vandelas returns to life after a vision of a wintry plane full of snow and ice. After resurrecting, Victoriah and her husband Jerrell tell Vandelas the truth of his lineage—he was abandoned by his mother and is the last of the Kindhrin, a race of demons destroyed by their own greed. With a new perspective on life and a strange ability to create ice, Vandelas decides to become a knight, beginning training that will shape his young life and the fate of the realm.
The world of Avariu is a fascinating place for readers to visit, similar in many ways to other fantasy worlds but with its own unique style and ideas. While the author wastes no time in getting to the remarkable background of Vandelas, there’s still an almost joyous pace to his life on the page, giving plenty of time to explore his friendships with animals and other children, his relationship with his parents, and his time spent learning how to be a page at Lord Estrine’s chateau. A few grizzly details notwithstanding, this is a fantastic debut of a young adult fantasy series and creates major stakes for its hero and the political climate of his world in just the first volume. By the end of the book, readers will be completely hooked and ready for more, with the promise of even greater adventures to come.
RECOMMENDED by the US Review