Tuesday, May 26, 2015

The Jack of Souls by Stephen C. Merlino Review & Excerpt


About the Book:

Title: The Jack of Souls
Author: Stephen C. Merlino
Publisher: Tortoise Rampant Books
Pages: 352
Genre: YA Fantasy
Format: Paperback/Hardcover/Kindle
An outcast rogue named Harric must break a curse laid on his fate or die by his nineteenth birthday. 
      
As his dead-day approaches, nightmares from the spirit world stalk him and tear at his sanity; sorcery eats at his soul.
      
To survive, he’ll need more than his usual tricks. He’ll need help—and a lot of it—but on the kingdom’s lawless frontier, his only allies are other outcasts. One of these outcasts is Caris, a mysterious, horse-whispering runaway, intent upon becoming the Queen’s first female knight. The other is Sir Willard—ex-immortal, ex-champion, now addicted to pain-killing herbs and banished from the court.
      
With their help, Harric might keep his curse at bay. But for how long?
      
And both companions bring perils and secrets of their own: Caris bears the scars of a troubled past that still hunts her; Willard is at war with the Old Ones, an order of insane immortal knights who once enslaved the kingdom. The Old Ones have returned to murder Willard and seize the throne from his queen. Willard is both on the run from them, and on one final, desperate quest to save her. 
       
Together, Harric and his companions must overcome fanatical armies, murderous sorcerers, and powerful supernatural foes.
       
Alone, Harric must face the temptation of a forbidden magic that could break his curse, but cost him the only woman he’s ever loved.

                                         ***
A tale of magic, mischief, and the triumph of tricksters.

For More Information


 Book Excerpt:
“You written your will yet, lad?”
Someone shouted the words in Harric’s ear over the din of the crowded barroom. He turned from the group of knights and house-girls he stood with, and found the brewer, Mags, leaning across the bar behind him. The old man fixed him with a look, drunk and earnest, and indicated the winch-clock on the bar. Five minutes to midnight. Five minutes left of Harric’s nineteenth year, and his last full day of life. “You’d best write it quick,” Mags said, “or Rudy’ll snatch up your things before your corpse is cold.”
Harric’s throat tightened. He clenched his jaw against a rising rage—rage at the unfairness of his fate, at the madness that spawned it, and—
He shook it off. He would not end like the others, howling or blubbering for mercy.
He tipped his cup back and took a deep drink from his wine. “The night is still young.”
“Don’t make light of it, son. This is the day.”
“You think I don’t remember?”
“Just trying to help.”
“You’re trying to clear me out before my death spoils the party.”
The old man scratched his stubbled chin. “Well, it would cramp the mood considerable…”

Harric managed a wry smile. He pointed to the winch-clock that towered above him, a column of woodwork on the bar, like a coffin on end. “When the twelfth chime sounds at midnight, my precious doom has till sunset tomorrow to find me. Plenty of time to write a will.”


About the Author

Stephen C. Merlino lives in Seattle, WA, where he writes, plays, and teaches high school English. He lives with the world's most talented and desirable woman, two fabulous children, and three attack chickens.

Growing up in Seattle drove Stephen indoors for eight months of the year. Before the age of video games, that meant he read a lot. At the age of eleven he discovered the stories of J.R.R. Tolkein and fell in love with fantasy.

Summers and rare sunny days he spent with friends in wooded ravines or on the beaches of Puget Sound, building worlds in the sand, and fighting orcs and wizards with driftwood swords.

About the time a fifth reading of The Lord of the Rings failed to deliver the old magic, Stephen attended the University of Washington and fell in love with Chaucer and Shakespeare and all things English. Sadly, the closest he got to England back then was The Unicorn Pub on University Way, which wasn't even run by an Englishman: it was run by a Scot named Angus. Still, he studied there, and as he sampled Angus's weird ales, and devoured the Unicorn's steak & kidney pie (with real offal!), he developed a passion for Scotland, too.

In college, he fell in love with writing, and when a kindly professor said of a story he'd written, "You should get that published!" Stephen took the encouragement literally, and spent the next years trying. The story remains unpublished, but the quest to develop it introduced Stephen to the world of agents (the story ultimately had two), and taught him much of craft and the value of what Jay Lake would call, "psychotic persistence."

Add to that his abiding love of nerds--those who, as Sarah Vowel defines it, "go too far and care too much about a subject"--and you have Stephen Merlino in a nutshell.

Stephen is the 2014 PNWA winner for Fantasy.

He is also the 2014 SWW winner for Fantasy.

His novel, The Jack of Souls is in its fourth month in the top ten on Amazon’s Children’s Fantasy Sword & Sorcery Best Seller list, and among the top three in Coming-of-Age.
For More Information


My Review:
I just finished reading a fantastic story called, "The Jack of Souls", by author Stephen C. Merlino and all I can say is wow! It is the beginning to a great fantasy series. Harric has a lot to do. Before his next birthday rolls around he will die if he does not break a curse on his fate. He needs to get a lot of help from others or he will fail.This book is one that fantasy lovers should not miss. I give this book a 4/5. I was given this book for the purpose of a  review and all opinions a re my own. 

Posted by at
Labels: ,

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)