Mark Tompkins has crafted a dynamic exploration of the latter days of magical energy in Eire. Although Tompkins introduces many characters with unfamiliar names, Celtic and otherwise, they remain vivid, psychologically compelling, and essential to the narrative. His list of magical creatures is long. I’d like to know if Tompkins invented their attributes, perhaps based on myths and legends.
The clever prologue and epilogue pull the reader into the narrative and leave her hoping for other tales, especially about his contemporary character, Sara Hill. We assume Sara’s magical heritage will inform her life in interesting ways.
The novel is definitely adult fantasy. Graphic sex and violence, lots of chopping, piercing, and disemboweling make this less of an appropriate choice for kids under 14. I’m well past that young age, yet those descriptive passages are sometimes hard to stomach, as it were.

But the fourteenth century in the British Isles and France was violent and fraught with conflict. So totally unlike our own (wink, wink, nudge, nudge).