In a world fractured by magical Boundaries, Cor Volucre, a simple stiller’s son, has lofty dreams of adventure and swordplay. When he finds a gap in the Boundary of his realm of Beldria, Cor ventures outside it and into a vast world of felled kingdoms, orks, beasts, and Elements. Once primordial beings of great power, Elements were drained to create the Boundaries—leaving them to wither into Fossils, bringing blight and conflict in their absence. After he meets a dying Element, Cor is gifted an elemental Fossil and tasked with saving the rest, restoring them and saving his fragmented world. He’s eventually joined by other wanderers who also possess powerful elemental Fossils, but with greater evils clashing against them at every turn, is there hope left of completing their quest?

Reminiscent of Tolkien’s works, C.V. Vobh’s THE YAWNING GAP lays out an impressive scope in its storytelling with this first installment. Layering fictional histories with legendary figures, mythology, ancient battles, folktales and old magic, Cor’s fractured world feels richly-detailed and comfortably inhabited by its many characters. As these characters roam across different Boundaries, histories and tales and place names are sometimes disputed amongst them, creating another finely nuanced layer of realism. From ork-infested lands to fallen kingdoms, tyrannical merchants and scheming warlocks, Cor and his ragtag wanderers encounter many friends and foes during the outset of their journey. Among the breathtaking, bloody battle sequences, fast-paced swordplay, and surprising twists, there’s also emotional glimpses into Cor’s life and how the absence of the Elements has grieved him. The way Cor meets his fellow wanderers—spunky farm girl Brayleigh, Knight-Lord Deliad, and orator and scholar Celeste—because of these surprising turns of fate and the wider world around him only add to the enjoyment of a quickly unfolding plot. The characters, even in quieter moments of the book, become likable heroes, powerful in their own ways, but not without their flaws and weaknesses. Celeste in particular becomes such a fascinating individual, her fraught arc one of the more intriguing aspects of the novel.

Vobh’s prose can be a little dense and overwrought, with repetitive descriptors, but the writing often has an elegance to it—sometimes with a poetic lilt. In contrast, the use of modern words and phrases in characters’ dialogue—for example, “yikes,” “prima donna,” and “baseball”—feels a little jarring at times.  And, it’s a bit frustrating that THE YAWNING GAP ends literally in the middle of the action, as even a good cliffhanger should have some sense of resolution. But this first book leaves a lot of questions to be answered in the next installment, especially with such high, world-altering stakes.

With a richly-detailed world, memorable characters, and thrilling battle sequences, C.V. Vobh’s THE YAWNING GAP is an imaginative, sweeping first entry in a new fantasy saga.

~Jessica Thomas for IndieReader