By Darkness Hid (Blood of Kings, #1) in Christian Readers

Aug 09, 2009 Jeanette rated it it was amazing

Shelves: personal-library

I just finished reading By Darkness Hid (Book I of Blood of Kings) by Jill Williamson. What can I say but "Bravo!" to an author who has published her first novel? Williamson has done a masterful job of bringing the characters to life and drawing the reader in to care deeply about each of them. I long to re-enter the world of Er'Rets while I wait for the sequel to be published. Is the second book finished yet, Jill?

The first character we meet is Achan Cham, a stray or an orphan with no remaining I just finished reading By Darkness Hid (Book I of Blood of Kings) by Jill Williamson. What can I say but "Bravo!" to an author who has published her first novel? Williamson has done a masterful job of bringing the characters to life and drawing the reader in to care deeply about each of them. I long to re-enter the world of Er'Rets while I wait for the sequel to be published. Is the second book finished yet, Jill?

The first character we meet is Achan Cham, a stray or an orphan with no remaining relatives to care for him or her. In the land of Er'Rets, strays are considered lower than slaves. Above slaves are servants, then peasants, then nobility, royalty, and council members. Teenaged Achan suffers many cruel punishments and circumstances ever since he can remember. He is forced to drink a noxious tonic every day and is beaten regularly. Early in the story, he meets Sir Gavin, an Old Kingsguard (as opposed to New Kingsguard) knight, who begins to train him as a squire--unheard of for strays in Achan's time.

We are then introduced to the story's heroine, Vrell Sparrow, in a parallel timeline. She is a noblewoman who is disguised as a stray boy in order to avoid a revolting marriage. She is, however, in another part of the land of Er'Rets, in which strays are not treated as cruelly as they are in Sitna, Achan's home. This does not mean that she does not suffer her share of cruelties. Despite the challenges, she remains true to her only God, Arman, and is drawn to a shared journey with Achan. Both of them share the gift of bloodvoicing, the ability to hear others' thoughts and speak to those who share the gift.

Although I had a bit of a challenge getting into the story initially, once I became familiar with the new culture and time period, the story swallowed me. One of the things that kept me from really getting into the story was that I noticed that there weren't any simple verbs such as "walked" or "ran." Everyone seemed to stumble, or weave, or edge, or scurry. Mostly scurry. I know that the mark of a good writer is descriptive wording, but in this case, the descriptive wording slowed me down by having me notice them rather than the story. Once I got used to the author's style, however, I was able to dig in. Having said that, every time a character "scurried," which was often, I felt like I got yanked out of the story. That was unfortunate, but I am a forgiving reader--especially when the story is so good!

My other note is that the proofreader missed a very noticeable error. In the latter part of the book (I don't remember which chapter it was), the word "taut" was meant (as in the character's mouth being taut), but the word "taught" was printed. That was the only major flaw that I noticed. Several typos or misspellings were noted, but nothing more than any other novel in its first printing would have had.

All in all, I highly recommend this book. I don't know how many books will be in this series, but I eagerly await each of them. I may just have to re-read "Book I" over and over until the sequels are available! ...more

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