Cecilia Dart-Thornton

The Barnes Noble Review The Battle of Evernight, the final installment in Australian author Cecilia Dart-Thornton's Bitterbynde trilogy, takes place in Erith, a richly detailed realm filled with a plethora of magical seelie (benevolent) and unseelie (malevolent) creatures. Seamlessly mixing British and Irish myths, fairy tales and folklore, Dart-Thornton (called Australia's answer to J.R.R. Tolkien) creates an extraordinarily wild world, comparable to Middle-earth, that can be both breathtakingly beautiful and, in the blink of an eye, the stuff of nightmares. With her memory slowly returning, the protagonist, Tahquil, along with her friends Caitri and Viviana, vows to find the Bitterbynde Gate, the only remaining passage into the world of Faeran. By finding the elusive gate, Tahquil can stop the impending war between feuding immortal Faeran brothers trapped in Erith: Angavar, the High King of the Fair Realm, and his younger twin brother, Morragan, the Raven Prince. The battle between Angavar and his followers and Morragan and his unseelie legions will likely take hundreds of thousands of lives, but if Tahquil can find the gate in time, all the immortals stranded in Erith will surely end their conflict and return posthaste to the Fair Realm. Fans of folklore and fairy tales should make it a point to read Dart-Thornton's entire Bitterbynde trilogy (The Ill-Made Mute, and The Lady of the Sorrows are the first two books). Her fluid, almost hypnotic writing style is reminiscent of Elizabethan poetry or Celtic music. In short, this is beautifully written, timeless fantasy. Paul Goat Allen

In a thrilling debut that combines storytelling mastery with a treasure trove of folklore, Cecilia Dart-Thornton creates a lushly romantic epic adventure, set in a world brimming with wonders and terrors. The Stormriders land their splendid winged stallions on the battlements of Isse Tower, while the scullions who dwell in the fortress's lower depths rarely even see the sun. Yet it is the least of the lowly--a mute, scarred foundling youth--who dares to climb the Tower, stow away aboard a Windship, and dive from the sky into a wilderness of endless danger. For goblins, peskies, knocks, and all the eldrich wights of the Unseelie haunt every tree, every pool, every turn in the road, tormenting or killing unwary travelers. And unknown to the nameless one, somewhere a dark force is summoning the malignant hordes, determined to destroy the young mute's identity, history...and destiny.

Jarred is a young boy who has grown up among his mother's peaceful desert people. While Jarred loves his mother, he longs to know the history of his father, a journeyman who left years earlier, promising to return for his wife and infant son. A broken promise but a token left behind--an amulet for Jarred that he has worn always. Some say it brings more than a bit of good luck his way, for no harm has ever befallen the boy. When Jarred comes to manhood, he decides to journey into the world to seek his fortune and perhaps along the way find news of his father. In his travels he will come to a place so unlike his own as to boggle his mind--a place of immense tracts of waterways and marshes, where the very air seems to teem with magic and a people surrounded by creatures fey and not, with enough strange customs and superstitions to make his head swirl. And to the beautiful Lilith, a woman who will haunt his dreams and ultimately steal his heart...who perhaps can provide a key to his heritage.

Returning to the magical Bitterbynde world, the maiden Rohain is no longer deformed or mute. Yet her dreams of happiness are short-lived when the Unseelie hordes declare war on humankind--and Rohain is the real target of the Wild Hunt. Original.