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 Winds of Fate (Valdemar: Mage Winds Book 01) by Mercedes Lackey |
Description: Winds of Fate is the first book in the Mage Winds Trilogy. High Magic has been lost to Valdemar centuries ago when the last Herald-Mage gave his life to save the kingdom from destruction by dark sorceries. Yet now the realm is at risk again. And Elspeth, Herald and heir to the throne, must take up the challenge, abandoning her home to find a mentor who can awaken her untrained mage abilities. But others, too, are being caught up in a war against sorcerous evil. The Tayledras scout Darkwind is the first to stumble across the menace creeping forth from the “Uncleansed Lands.” And as sorcery begins to take its toll, Darkwind may be forced to call upon powers he has sworn never to use again if he and his people are to survive an enemy able to wreak greater devastation with spells of destruction than with swords…. Buy From: |
Rating: 
Review:The first book the the Mage Winds Trilogy picks up the story of Valdemar a couple of after the events in the ‘Arrow’s of the Queen’ Trilogy and ‘By The Sword’. By this time Valdemar’s war with Hardon is at a standstill with both sides prepared for a long seige. Ancar is busy building up an army of mages and since the magical protection over Valdemar was weakning quickly the Heir to the throne ‘Elspeth’ sets out to find a mage willing to come to Valdemar and teach any Heralds with Mage gift, during the journey she finds out that she has mage potential and needs to be trained immediately. On the other side of the world Darkwind’s clan is under seige and they don’t have enough strength to resist for long even though their elder council still refuses to accept this.
The book is a great read, a little bit darker than the usual Valdemar novels but not very dark. All the characters in the book are well defined and their motivations actually make sense. Elspeth and Darkwind are the primary characters in it and the author focuses on their point of view for the most part.
This book is the first one after the books in the ‘Last Herald Mage’ trilogy where the legendary Hawk brothers are a major player, we were given a brief hint about the hawk-brothers in a couple of previous books but never in any detail. This one finally makes up for this lack by telling us the story of their creation along with the Shin’a’in by the Starry Eyed.
It is a light read in the sense that there are no long and very complicated plotlines to worry about, there are a few major characters and they are easy to remember and differenciate between unlike a few other books.
Final Recommendation: A great read.