by Terrance Mc Arthur

Details at the end of this post on how to enter to win a copy of First and Last Sorcerer, along with a link to purchase the book where a portion goes to help support KRL & supports indie bookstore Mysterious Galaxy.

Barb Hendee has written some of my favorite fantasy books. She and her husband, J. C. Hendee, have written one of the larger sets of fantasy novels, the Noble Dead series, and the thirteenth ND book, First and Last Sorcerer, has just been released.

Magiere is a dhampir, a vampire-human hybrid. She and Leesil, her half-elf husband, have been searching super-powerful Orbs that were once used by an evil being. Upon reaching the southern port, they have been thrown into prison. To make matters worse, Magiere is mentally tortured each night by a phantom nobody sees.

Wynn Hygheort, a sage, sails into town to find Magiere, and enlists her former mentor, an on-the-run sorcerer who escaped his order’s extermination. Throw in some elven assassins, a vampire, sentient wolf-dogs with special powers, and evil-vizier types, and you have quests within quests, capers within capers, love affairs within love affairs, and rivalries within rivalries.

Magiere is the only one who can retrieve the last Orb, so she has to be busted out of the dungeons, and things are bound to get as complicated as a jigsaw puzzle with extra pieces thrown into it.

The Hendees have trimmed down their narrative style, doing away with the proliferation of extended flashbacks that marked some earlier installments of the saga. They focus on the action, but manage to develop their characters without slowing the narrative flow. After a dozen books, there is a fluidity that propels the reader onward. There is only one more book planned for the series, and it definitely will help to have read some more of the series to understand characters, world rules, and what is going on, here.

While reading this book, I broke one of my personal rules; I read the final page before its time (I was looking to see how many pages there were, and…oops!), which gave away a major plot point. I spent the rest of my reading time trying to find clues and pointers to how it happened. Save yourselves from my fate! Don’t cheat! Let Barb and J. C. catch you unawares! Consider yourself warned, and consider yourself lucky if you read this book.

To enter to win a copy of First and Last Sorcerer, simply email KRL at krlcontests@gmail[dot]com by replacing the [dot] with a period, and with the subject line “Sorcerer,” or comment on this article. A winner will be chosen February 7, 2015. U.S. residents only. If entering via email please include your mailing address.

Check out more fantasy book reviews in our fantasy and fangs section.

Use this link to purchase this book & a portion goes to help support KRL & it supports an indie bookstore:

First and Last Sorcerer: A Novel of the Noble Dead

Terrance V. Mc Arthur is a Community Librarian for the WoW! (WithOut Walls) Division of the Fresno County Public Library, roaming the Valley to meet the public’s information needs.