Myrren's Gift
The Quickening, Book 1

By Fiona McIntosh

     Myrren knows that she is going to die. The land of Morgravia may have become more civilized under recent rulers, but belief in witchcraft still runs deep. Her last act is to bequeath a gift to young Wyl Thirsk, hereditary general of the Morgravian Legion. He thinks that it is a large fierce dog, but there is a lot more to the gift than that. The old king is dying, and his son is as evil as he is beautiful. With the Mountain People keen on conquest and their hereditary enemy Briavel next door, Wyl is obviously going to have his work cut out for him, but even more than he can guess…

     If a story about warring kings, magic gifts and mountain brigands sounds familiar, then you are either applauding or groaning. If you are doing the latter, why are you reading a fantasy review? If the former, then pull up a chair and delve into one of the most exciting novels of its kind I have read for some time. There are some surprising twists and turns-you won't guess it all-but this isn't mold-breaking stuff. Who cares? McIntosh has created some characters that are fairly predictable, it is true, but I did care about what happened to them. It is the pace that sweeps the reader away, and this never flags in a lengthy 500+ page book, and that is no mean feat. As with all really good fantasy, it is not so much what happens, but how it happens and what the author does with the basic framework. I take my hat off to any writer who can keep up a breathless pace in a book this long, and I will definitely be looking out for book two (yes, it is a trilogy). This one presses all the right buttons in all the right places.