Two smitten royals balance tangled family ties with the pressing needs of statecraft, hoping to support reform in the kingdom; but in THE GARNET CROWN, a dark magical force and infighting over the succession threaten both their love and the safety of the realm.

Darius and Kevelynd are both members of the royal family, but they find themselves at opposite ends of the social and political order. Darius is next in line to the throne; Kevelynd, raised in a house without a lord, is a second-class citizen who can’t even speak to his social superiors without being spoken to first. The two nonetheless develop a complicated, semi-mystical bond, both seeking to escape the politically-charged family ties and social strictures which prevent them from openly declaring their feelings. The king and queen – Darius’ father and Kevelynd’s mother – are increasingly at odds over rule and succession, while Darius himself proposes popular social reform to meet a looming magical threat which has already destroyed several cities. However, the real meat of the narrative is in the emotional life of the two protagonists: they struggle to manage their feelings while raising their children and wards with care, and constantly temper their desires with the requirements of their respective positions.

The world of THE GARNET CROWN is wide and well-imagined by authors Hunter Levi Hastings and Kise Vincent Hastings. Fans of Tolkien-style high fantasy will appreciate the maps of the kingdom and the appended notes about language, calendars, and time-keeping. There’s also plenty of rich description of custom, law, and dress, all of which offer insight into the world that exists outside the scope of this single narrative. The most important figure here is Zaldyan, the sorcerer whose dark magic threatens the kingdom, but who also devised the social order still followed there. The setup for future books is clear – groundwork is laid for a magic system based partly on heredity and partly on the grace of a divinity, which informs the social order and the relationships of the characters.

The characters themselves are the real strength of the work. Darius and Kevelynd are both appealingly complex people who exist in well-defined networks of kinship and governance. The thread of romance between the two men is particularly refreshing given that they both have children or wards in their care; these are not infatuated youngsters but mature men whose desires and choices are framed by previous relationships and paternal responsibilities as much as they are by the external factors of political and social unrest. There are neither epic battles nor passionate bedroom scenes – although this is unquestionably both high fantasy and romance – but the action plays out in tense, intimate conversations, often between family members whose interests are opposed. The result is high fantasy with a higher note of psychological realism.

However, these strengths are often buried by over-written prose. THE GARNET CROWN uses an elevated faux-medieval voice that distracts without meaningfully adding to the reader’s experience of the already well-drawn world. Most of the time, this is just an annoyance (“hither” stands in for “here,” or “hearken” for “listen,” without really employing any differences in meaning), but there are moments where the language slips and jars the reader (“‘Tis okay, my son”). Some readers might not mind a reference to an “Adam’s apple” in a fantasy world where the biblical story of the Garden of Eden literally doesn’t exist; few will miss a dinner plate flying “like a frisbee” at a rowdy feast. Great care has been given to the world, characters, and story of THE GARNET CROWN, but the language needs some structural revision and a final polishing to match the same high standards.

While THE GARNET CROWN introduces a rich high fantasy setting filled with thoughtful, complex characters and a compelling emotional narrative, the prose ends up being a hindrance over the substantial length of the book.

~Dan Accardi for IndieReader