Winter’s wedding to the mysterious refugee Knot is hard enough for the fact that she’s marrying a human, rather than a fellow elf. When the ceremony is interrupted by the irruption of a gang of thugs, Winter’s marriage and her life are both ripped apart, and she is launched on a journey fraught with destiny.

Christopher Husberg’s breathtaking debut fantasy novel Duskfall manages to be dark without being hopeless, savage without being ugly, and wise without being pedantic. This is a stunning debut, and bodes well for the four books to come in the series.

Imagine a world in which elves are a hated minority, banding together for safety in large cities. The Empire’s faith may be a crumbling fraud . . . or the heretic prophetess preaching against it and claiming to have recovered the faith’s original and lost scriptures may be a deluded fool. Wizards are drug addicts. Monks are murderers and mad scientists. Vampires save and villains repent. Mighty beings lie at the door of this world and knock, seeking entrance, but it is unclear whether they are angels or devils.

No one has clear vision, and death taints everything.

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