The Gazing Globe
Candace SamsFantasy romance
Available from Venus Press
ISBN: 1-59836-27407
March 2006
| On a small farm outside tiny Harvest, Maine, a young man, Blain, grieves inconsolably over the loss of both parents: his father to an unexpected heart failure, followed by his mother to organ failure. He himself is gravely ill, but is determined to keep up the farm; and at night, he answers the call to run through the woods, returning to nature. One such night he finds a mysterious symbol carved into a tree, of a stick figure slashed through. The deaths and his illness are indeed intentional, the product of black magic. The sudden appearance of Hugh, the uncle Blain never knew he had, is startling, and even more so is the fact that Hugh will only say that he and Blain’s parents had always been terribly close and that his parents had been forced to leave Scotland suddenly for their own safety.
Blain’s parents and Hugh are members of an Order consisting of both otherworldly beings, and magic practitioners such as Druids. Hugh discovers quickly that Blain’s parents had been killed by a Druidic practitioner utilizing black magic; and that the same person or persons is killing Blain slowly and painfully through the intensifying debilitiating illnesses. Blain’s parents had deserted the Order; but apparently someone or something from the Order had caught up with them, killing them fairly quickly and making their son suffer both grief and painful illnesses. Blain is yet to discover that his parents were Faery and Druid, and that as a magical blend, he is much in demand but also much in danger. The Gazing Globe is a complicated mystery-fantasy involving a large cast of characters and shifting plot changes. It is second in a series entitled Tales of The Order, about the magical band which coalesces to keep magical creatures both viable, and secreted from mass humanity. Although it can be read alone, I believe most readers would benefit from reading the stories in the series in order, to better keep track of the characters and plot lines. Ms. Sams devotes a great talent for world-building to this series, which is recommendd for lovers of fantasy, mystery, and romance.
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Reviewer: Annie |
