Thorn St. Croix is a stone mage who draws her power from the leftover energy of creation, and she lives in a Post-Apocalyptic world unlike any I have ever read about or seen in a movie before. About a hundred years ago, seraphim came and rained down plagues and destruction, just like in the book of Revelation; but the Most High God never showed himself, so the people that are left don't know which religion is "right", and the seraphim don't concern themselves too much with humans, unless they start rioting and destroying each other; and to counter the angels, there are also demons and devil spawn that come out at night. In a world of "neomages" and Kylen, human and seraph cross breeds, Thorn must hide her identity and suppress her skin (which glows) in order to pretend to be human. Twice she sees a bloodring around the moon, a bad omen, and then strange things start happening, and it all seems to be centered on the nearby mountain, where a powerful Dark creature is taking hostages and working on some kind of evil plan.
Thorn lives somewhere in the Appalachian mountains, in a small town called Mineral City. She was raised in a mage Enclave in New Orleans, but when she came into her powers as a teenager, she began to hear all the thoughts of all the other mages, and it was driving her crazy-- so she was sent away for her protection, with amulets to protect her and make her look human.
Thorn's ex-husband is kidnapped, her step-daughter has been seeing a Daywalker, and eventually Thorn gets drawn into a huge fight with the darkness under the Trine, summoning seraphs to help in the fight. It all makes for a pretty fun, exciting read.
I don't think it's ever explained where the mages came from, just that they were "unforeseen." But, for some reason, they don't have souls. And the presence of seraphs or kylen makes a mage go into an irresistable heat. But Thorn works her magic through stones, drawing on the energies of creation, and she uses scripture verses as words of power when she fights.
I picked this book up because I had previously bought the second in the series when I saw it in a discount bin and thought it looked interesting (not realizing it was a sequel). I think the cover for this edition is pretty bad: it's not very appealing, and it's annoyingly inaccurate. Thorn is red-haired, and makes use of knives and swords (demon spawn are hard to kill and guns aren't much use), but she never dresses in tight black leather. She either wears layers of leggings and sweaters to hide all her stone amulets and wrist knive sheathes and for warmth (there's a mini-ice age going on), or she wears her black mage "dobok" for battle.
| Title: | Bloodring |
|---|---|
| Author: | Faith Hunter |
| Date published: | 2006 |
| Genre: | Fantasy |
| Series: | Rogue Mage Novels |
| Number of pages: | 319 |
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