Book Review: Cephrael’s Hand by Melissa McPhail

Synopsis:

“All things are composed of patterns…” And within the pattern of the realm of Alorin, three strands must cross:

In Alorin…three hundred years after the genocidal Adept Wars, the realm is dying, and the blessed Adept race dies with it. One man holds the secret to reverting this decline: Bjorn van Gelderan, a dangerous and enigmatic man whose shocking betrayal three centuries past earned him a traitor’s brand. It is the Adept Vestal Raine D’Lacourte’s mission to learn what Bjorn knows in the hope of salvaging his race. But first he’ll have to find him…

In the kingdom of Dannym…the young Prince Ean val Lorian faces a tenuous future as the last living heir to the coveted Eagle Throne. When his blood-brother is slain during a failed assassination, Ean embarks on a desperate hunt for the man responsible. Yet his advisors have their own agendas, and his quest for vengeance leads him ever deeper into a sinuous plot masterminded by a mysterious and powerful man, the one they call First Lord…

In the Nadori desert…tormented by the missing pieces of his life, a soldier named Trell heads off to uncover the truth of his shadowed past. But when disaster places him in the debt of Wildlings sworn to the First Lord, Trell begins to suspect a deadlier, darker secret motivating them.

Review:

Cephrael’s Hand by Melissa McPhail is a fantasy adventure set in a richly imagined, well-constructed world complete with its own magic system and religious structure. McPhail has peopled her world with engaging, flawed but courageous characters that keep the pages turning long after a lesser book would have been set aside.

Between plot twists and rich characterization, the book was well worth the read and  I look forward to watching this writer develop in future books almost as much as I look forward to watching the rest of the story unfold in the remaining books in the series.

Author Bio:

Melissa McPhail is a classically trained pianist, violinist and composer, a Vinyasa yoga instructor, and an avid Fantasy reader. A long-time student of philosophy, she is passionate about the Fantasy genre because of its inherent philosophical explorations.

Ms. McPhail lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband, their twin daughters and two very large cats.

Cephrael’s Hand is the award-winning first novel in her series A Pattern of Shadow and Light.

Author, Melissa McPhail