Dawnthief (Chronicles of the Raven, Bk. 1) - Softcover

James Barclay is 36. He works in marketing as a copywriter. He also holds an equity card. This is his first novel.

Barclay's hefty novel launches the Chronicles of the Raven, but be of good cheer, for it injects some originality into the traditional fantasy saga recipe. The Raven is a band of six humans and one elf in the war-torn kingdom of Balaia, which Barclay fills with the fruits of his considerable knowledge of military history and folklore. The comrades are no nicer than fellows loyal to one another and no one else need be, and their latest commission is a poser for them. They are to escort a Xeteskian mage, who is working for only the gods know whom, on a mission to find Dawnthief, a ring, or more precisely, a spell connected to a ring, that in the wrong hands could end the world. The mission is backed and supervised by the Dark College, which is even more untrustworthy than the mage. So matters rapidly deteriorate, to a cliffhanger ending. The narrative may be jumbled, but Barclay builds a world and peoples it intelligently. Roland Green
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved