The Eye of Night
By Pauline J. Alama 

     It is a time of chaos. People are fleeing the north where the world is said to be ending, civilization is breaking down and even the dead are rising from their graves. But three people are swimming against the tide and actually going northwards. The narrator is Jereth, a failed priest, and his two traveling companions: the disfigured but compelling Hwyn and the beautiful Lady Trenara. Hwyn holds the Eye of Night, a magical egg that has the power to end the world, or will it actually begin a new one instead?

     Having a narrator always makes a tale seem fresh and immediate and this story has both these traits in abundance. Jereth and his strange mentor Hwyn are delineated in wonderful detail, so much so that when the book ended I felt sorry that I wasn’t going to be reading another, although this is another great thing about this novel; it is not part of a trilogy! The whole story is contained within these two covers and an action- packed tale it is, too, that barely pauses breath and features a well-realized world with a plausibly uncomplicated religious system. There is much to praise here and this is one author whose work I will be looking out for in the future. Recommended.