Blood Ties

February 25, 2008
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 characters—most notably Bramble, who manages to be tough but not hard, a loner but not unsympathetic and sexual but not obsessed with romance—and interwoven stories that at times draw too heavily on George R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire novels for inspiration.

April 15, 2008
Years ago, the warleader Acton invaded the land now known as the Eleven Domains, slaying its original inhabitants to make room for his own people. The survivors became known as The Travelers, fugitives in their own lands. As the stories of Bramble, a young girl with a gift for taming horses; Ash, a boy trained as a hired killer; and Saker, an enchanter seeking to raise the dead for revenge, move toward a destined joining, the hidden stories of the Domains' people come to life. YA author Freeman's first novel for adults depicts a world where ghosts commune with the living and where fate is foretold in the casting of stones. Gracefully narrated through many voices, this series opener belongs in most fantasy collections.

Copyright 2008 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.