Darkborn (Darkborn Trilogy)
by: Alison Sinclair
Published by: ROC, a division of Penguin Books
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Reviewed by C. L. Rossman
In this imaginative fantasy, an entire country’s people are divided between Darkborn and Lightborn. The Darkborn must dwell in the night, in darkness, for any touch of daylight can kill them, while the Lightborn keep their cities and towns perpetually lit against the fall of darkness, which can destroy them.
But impossibly, the Darkborn woman Tercelle Amberley, who staggers to Balthasar Hearne’s door just steps ahead of the sunrise, says she is pregnant with twins supposedly of a Lightborn father—an incredible thing in this world. And when those twins are born, Balthasar discovers they can see a lighted candle, but darkness doesn’t harm them, either.
Immediately the babies become the subject of a sweeping manhunt, and kind Balthasar, who gave them to a friend when their mother rejected them, is beaten nearly to death for his pains, and his own daughter is kidnapped.
In this enchanting fantasy, which reads like a vivid history with magic, great houses, and conspiracies set into its weave, we are taken to a world where people must dwell in utter darkness, where they use sonn, something like sonar, to “read” their surroundings, and whose every fact of life like reading a newspaper, is made consistent with their lifestyle (writing consists of “punchouts,” for example.) What the Lightborn have, and how they protect themselves from darkness, we shall see in Sinclair’s next novel, titled Lightborn.
Finding something like this, with its well-thought-out culture and its sinister plot, is a welcome relief from stories about such nightdwellers as vampires and ghouls. These are just people, who have adapted themselves as best they can, to a curse uttered by an Archmage centuries ago. Now the foundations of their very world are in upheaval and we read eagerly on, wanting to know what happens next.
Armchair Interviews says: This is a unique story with a fascinating premise, well worth your while as readers of fantasy.
From our armchair to yours...
