Touchstone (2012) (edit title/settings)

• Rated 4 stars

“In this fantasy about a young drama troupe the performances are a result of the combined magics of the four young men (and a young female glasscrafter whose glass holds their spells). No one is a pureblood anything anymore but many have a little elf, wizard, troll, fae, or whatever blood in them. Rawn develops her characters slowly and they come replete with flaws. I found this performance centric fantasy fascinating, although if you are keen on swords and battles this is probably not for you. First book in a series. Humor is a feature. ”

• Rated 3 stars

“This is a very interesting book, although not very easy to read. The author was brilliant in the creation of the environment where the story develops. Her fantasy world has characters from mixed races like giants, elves, trolls etc. Our main character is Cayden and his wish is to assemble a theater troupe. In his land, those groups are composed of four members. He has two other old friends (Rafcadion and Jeschenar) that want to join him. The fourth one is Mieka. Magic is performed to create illusion on each play. They start to being recognized as good and they are invited to participate in a contest to see which troupe is the best in the land.
The author uses a lot of terms defined later at the end of the book in a long glossary, and that is why I mentioned earlier that this is not an easy reading at all. But it is entertaining. If you have the patience to dig into the glossary and find the meaning of the term, you will definitely enjoy the book.

This book was written by Melanie Rawn and was Published by Tor Books on February of 2012. Amazon.com was kind enough to provide this book for me through their Vine Program for reviewing and I was not request to provide a positive review. Opinions expressed here are my own.”