The White Tree: The Cycle of Arawn: Book I
Sixteen-year-old Dante is obsessed with learning to wield the nether, the powerful magic of the death god Arawn. But a century ago, Arawn's followers were scoured from the kingdom of Mallon. Their temples smashed. Their secrets lost. When Dante tracks down a copy of their holiest book, he throws himself into its study--and finds himself under siege in the city streets. Arawn's believers aren't dead. They're in hiding, and they want back their book. With the help of the nether and a loudmouthed bodyguard named Blays, Dante escapes into the wilds. But Arawn's army is ready to march from the shadows. As they move against Mallon, they hunt Dante relentlessly, in search of the book. And with his powers growing by the day, Dante finds himself used as a tool in the war against them. He and Blays are dispatched on a thousand-mile journey to assassinate the Arawnites' leader. If they fail, their homeland will fall.
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Community Reviews
I don't want you to get the wrong idea. I have a pretty strict rating system, and I'm comparing this to some Shakespeare, Dickens, and some Rowling. So an average book can still be a fun read. There are so many anachronistic anecdotes and figures of speech that would only apply in a semi-modern religious world with a single god that ended up in our world that completely ruins any sense of "period," but hey, the dialogue, the tongue-in-cheek ripostes between Dante and pretty much everyone else he meets are just about the funniest one-liners I've read in a long time. The religious, magical story, that is the backdrop is pretty interesting, and the approach to magic is quite novel, which makes this again, a really good read. Finally, the last piece I want to mention, is that this book is the perfect book to read right before you take a Philosophy 101 course. It will get you in the mode of at least 2 philosophical questions - one for duckiness, and another for learning to continue conversing and arguing about the conclusions. The rest of the philosophy primer will be much more subtle, but ever present throughout this book.
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