Herald of Primrose

Herald of Primrose

Two thousand years ago, the Great Sorcerers of Fridar built a god out of hope and grief — then tore each other apart over what he was for. Ever since, the world has done its best not to remember.

River City remembers least of all. It's the safest, quietest town in Fridar, tucked behind river cliffs where nothing worse happens than old Gammel Grund losing his afternoon pipe to a couple of reckless boys. Norn Suur has spent his whole life staring past the mill window at another world, wishing he could cross. Stif Suoker just wants his mother back — she vanished chasing a "sign" years ago, and no one in his family will talk about it.

Then a blue starling lands on Grund's outstretched hand. It isn't from around here. Messengers like it never are.

By morning, the oldest man in town is three hundred years younger, a library that shouldn't exist wakes up under his cellar floor, and two boys who've never held a real sword are being handed wooden ones — and a deadline. Something out past the cliffs is calling, and it isn't going to wait for River City to be ready.

Herald of Primrose is a secondary-world epic fantasy for readers who want the hearth-warmth of The Hobbit, stakes that actually bite the way they do in A Song of Ice and Fire (without the endless grimness), and a multiverse built like a good puzzle box — the kind where a throwaway line in chapter one turns out to matter a great deal more than you think