by NICOLA DAVIES; 

Artist: JACKIE MORRIS

An Adventure Book Review by Erin the Literary Cat©, International Book Reviewer.

AUTHOR:  Nicola Davies

Cover art by:  Jackie Morris

Published by: FIREFLY PRESS

Publication date: Hardback:   14 September 23

Publication date: Paperback: TBA

Paperback ISBN:  978 - 1 - 913102 - 77 - 7

Cover price for Hardback £14.99, 

Paperback price: TBA

Pages:  416

Age range: Teen/YA upward

SPOILER ALERT

Some as to plot, direction, and characters. 

Thank you to... 

We are exceedingly grateful to Firefly Press Publishers for approving us via NetGalley to Read & Review this much-anticipated book before publication for you. 

As ever, our views are our own, and we only share reviews of books we have bought, been given as gifts, or received in exchange for an impartial review. 

First and foremost, the books we review are those we like and feel our global readers deserve to know about and that we hope they, their children, friends and students will enjoy.

The plot

One of the first pages of this book bears the quote: 

"The tiger and the sturgeon and the owl are keepers of the forest.

Each must speak to each other to keep the forest whole. But owl, who speaks to both the river and the trees, is the greatest keeper of them all." 

It is a quote from an ancient tale that held together a people and a land. It's a theme that plays an integral part in the story, which, if you read the book, you will see why and understand. Glimmers of this will be apparent from the characters I shall introduce to you.

Owl is a freak; at least, that is what the circus owners and its visitors call him. A boy's body, shortened legs and a bird's head, he lives a sorry life. Snatched from his mother's arms in the forest land of his birth, he and the other animal residents are effectively trapped in the circus owner Majak, and his colossal bear, Karu. 

Majak rules the beasts, including Karu, by fear. He is using a gift he possesses called Listening. That talent is distrusted by other humans, so he puts his animals' amazing performances down to his skill in training rather than the pain and cruelty he inflicts by entering their minds and tormenting them into submission.  

When the circus's once proud lioness dies giving birth, Owl rescues the soul-surviving cub from being dumped into the ice-covered lake with the corpses of the others. It starts a great new friendship for Owl and the cub, named Skrimsli, who is safe, loved and cared for, at least for a while.

We are next introduced to Kal, born of a Horse people mother and a Herring people father. He walks the line between the two cultures though he inherited the Horse people's skill at riding. He is fleeing for his life, dodging bullets. On visiting friends in the small Horse village of Talo, he witnesses two assassins dressed in strange uniforms, setting the scene of a massacre they have just committed on the unarmed village folk. The bodies they place at the location will implicate the Herring folk and start a war. In the ensuing turmoil, the neighbouring peoples of Nordsky and Rumycs sent in troops to officially help the people. In truth, gold, timber and oil were at the root of the engineered war. The people and their lands would be plundered, destroyed and shipped away for others' benefit.

Kal's magnificent horse, Luja, with its star-marked coat, stands out too much. It is why he was being chased. As the witness to the atrocity, he is soon labelled the villain, and a bounty is on his head. Arriving at a coastal town, Kal visits his friend Havvity and her baby son, Roko. But he needs to flee when the town comes under martial law. Disguising Luja with paint, he heads to the port to gain passage. Spotting Majak's circus leaving the dock, he and Luja jump across the water and land aboard, thus joining the circus and securing passage. As the rain starts to reveal Luja's actual markings, Majak shares a glance with two suspicious and creepy female acrobatic twins.

The circus heads east to the Sand City of Shamanow in Yuderan, a land of sand and hills. It is a land ruled by the Palatine, the Queen of the Desert. Sent as a diplomatic mission by the Nordsky government, it was said to be to cheer the Yuderan people who had suffered severe drought and failed crops.

If Owl thought he could keep Skrimsli safe and away from Majak's grasp, he was mistaken. Soon enough, when the tiger was big enough, the two are separated. With a steel collar, Skrimsli is to be trained as the centrepiece of the show for the Palatine. But, Skrimsli is not for cowering and can speak into the minds of others. He is curious and wise. His wisdom and growing understanding of his power, body, and mind mean he has an edge that the other animals don't. So he bides his time pretending to acquiesce to the circus owner's demands for a very particular and fatal performance he has to give.

Now we come to the third part of this story: the Palatine and her mighty eagle. Given the thrown of Yuderan in preference to her brother, Yalen, there were those that thought she was not fit to rule. The trip she takes was her brother's idea, no doubt to make her leave the city, and so leave him the throne. She was to agree to a railway being built across the drought-stricken land. But she knew what would come with it, and it wasn't good, and she would not sign. 

Being a Listener, too, she sent her eagle up to survey the way ahead and her country's borders. Seeing massed troops and machinery ready at the border, she knew the fate of her country, and her life would be decided at the meeting, or more likely, at the circus that was to perform in her honour.

Disguising herself as a horseback performer, and leaving her lookalike bodyguard to travel on as the Palatine, she joins the circus.

OK, so this is where I absolutely HAVE to stop. The stage is set. The characters I have told you about become embroiled in a power and resources struggle. Some are pawns, others heroes in the making. The journeys they take, alone or in groups, in a world of both machines, sailing ships and horses, will leave an indelible mark on the reader. Murder, assassination, and blackmail play their parts, and much more, both good and bad, natural or otherwise. Love, loyalty and friendship will be found tested to the limit and also lost in the face of the extremes life and nature can throw at them.

So, what did we think?

Never since reading Lord of the Rings have I felt so attached to the characters, their troubles, their journeys, pain and joys. This is an epic tale, expansive in its atmosphere yet also intimate. It skillfully weaves stories within a story and lives within lives. Each is explored and cherished and brought together in such harmony it sings. A tale that is cleverly as relevant to our world as theirs.

Good books, those stories we pick to review, leap off the page, sell themselves, and make for easy reviews to write. This book was slightly different. It is excellent, without a doubt. It is also far more complex than I imagined and so much more than the superb cover image by Jackie Morris might suggest. There are layers and stories that I have tried very hard to set out in an unbound fashion. I hope I have kept a flavour, in simplistic terms, of all there is. But please do not assume it is simplistic. Visceral at times, maybe, given the characters, but also considered and cold like the assassins. 

Finally, I always feel that my reading time has been well-spent with a book like this. I have been entertained. I have dug deeper within myself than I realised at the time of reading to make comparisons with our world, and my appetite has been whetted for more.

So . . . . 

Crunch time. 

Anybody wishing to spend a few days with a marvellous piece of writing with characters (be they human, tiger or bear) far greater than the pages in which they abide, with thought-provoking undertones to add to the layers of imagery, should consider this book.