"Fantastic fantasy"

The God-Wall protects the city of Anavatan, the Silver Lake known as Gol-Beyaz where the six Gods live, and twelve outlying villages. The power and richness of the city is a magnet to the barbarian tribes like the Yuruk who each year unsuccessfully try to breach the wall. The spirits (essences of prophecy) want form and to have that they need to drine from the lake and eat the people unsworn to any God; neither the tribes nor the spirits have managed to breach the wall except this year during theevent known as Havo's Dance.

During the second night of the event, the spirits attack teens Brax, his younger friend Spar, and the malevolent Graize. Brax calls on the God of Battle Estavia for help and she makes him and Spar her own. Graize wakes up spirit filled in the plains where he meets up with a Yuruk tribe who takes him in and prophecies that this year they will be able to breach the God walls because the spirits who want substance will help him. Brax becomes Estavia's champion and is destined to meet Graize in battle, while Spar is trying to find a place for himself without giving in to a seer that speaks to him telepathically and wants to use him in his plans for conquest.

The first book in The Warriors of Estavia is a fantastic fantasy filled with action, intrigue and refreshingly original and realistic characters. The bond between Brax and Spar is beautiful to behold and the pair change over the cycle of the book in a realistic manner as they are shown love combined with discipline. An expert world builder, Fiona Patton actually has her audience believing in Gods who commonly manifest themselves to their people in a physical form.

Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted October 15, 2005

Summary

In Anavatan, the city of the Silver Lake, where the gods frequently manifest, it's hard to survive if you're not pledged to a deity. When the three-night chaos of Havo's Dance sweeps through the city, the unaffiliated had best find good places to hide-or risk madness and death out on the streets. But during this year's Dance, street orphans Spar and Brax will discover their destinies: one when he is marked as the future Champion of the War God, and the other as he learns to master his talent as a seer. And their enemy Graize will be cast forth from the city and claimed by hungry spirits-spirits who seek a way into Anatavan and the power of the Silver Lake.