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Tales & Treasure
In Emre, bards are revered. Their stories have answers; their stories have influence; their stories have power.
When the subject of his story meets an untimely end, Vatis, a disgraced bard, finds himself alone in the unforgiving wilderness. Undeterred and desperate, he embarks on a quest to find a new subject for his revitalizing tale.
A fascinating hero emerges. Vidmar, an army deserter turned treasure hunter, is tasked with a secret mission–to find a powerful, long-lost crown. However, his merciless employer's patience wanes with each passing day. In desperation, he confronts the bard, hoping he can provide a new clue.
Their unlikely partnership leads to confrontations with bandits, thieves, wolves, and worse until Vidmar's secret is revealed. With Vatis's knowledge, they uncover new clues to the crown's location, bringing Vidmar closer than he's ever been.
Can Vatis restore his place in the Bard's Guild and earn the recognition he desperately craves?
Can they find the crown before they are killed?
Or will the story be lost to the darkness slowly spreading across Emre?
When the subject of his story meets an untimely end, Vatis, a disgraced bard, finds himself alone in the unforgiving wilderness. Undeterred and desperate, he embarks on a quest to find a new subject for his revitalizing tale.
A fascinating hero emerges. Vidmar, an army deserter turned treasure hunter, is tasked with a secret mission–to find a powerful, long-lost crown. However, his merciless employer's patience wanes with each passing day. In desperation, he confronts the bard, hoping he can provide a new clue.
Their unlikely partnership leads to confrontations with bandits, thieves, wolves, and worse until Vidmar's secret is revealed. With Vatis's knowledge, they uncover new clues to the crown's location, bringing Vidmar closer than he's ever been.
Can Vatis restore his place in the Bard's Guild and earn the recognition he desperately craves?
Can they find the crown before they are killed?
Or will the story be lost to the darkness slowly spreading across Emre?
437 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 1, 2024
10 people are currently reading
22 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
October 30, 2024
A highly recommended read. I'm a big fan of found family and quest adventure in fantasy, and they wonderfully collided in this book while offering something fresh to read. Between the 2 PoVs of Vatis and Vidmar, the latter was my favorite as there's so many layers to the guy. But Vatis comes a close second because of his relatable desires and flaws. There is a lot of promise to this world and lore, handled deftly, and that has me looking forward to the sequels.
August 26, 2025
Tales & Treasure is a traditional fantasy in true form, the world of Emre hitting all the benchmarks we all know and love from the fantasy genre; rumours and hijinks at taverns and inns, run-ins with dangerous characters or creatures on the road, legends and lies the common folk all tell one another, swordplay and skullduggery, haunted forests and exotic impassable deserts… It’s a place that feels familiar, like a favourite coat or well-worn pair of boots. That’s not said to colour it as predictable, but rather to attest to Mortell’s skill in crafting an imaginative setting that isn’t complicated and doesn’t leave you wanting. Because Tales & Treasures isn’t told for the world, it’s told for the people who live in it.
The character building shines in the novel. From the onset when we meet Vatis, he is the quintessential bard; somewhat arrogant, a bit pompous, and endlessly adaptable. He consciously slips into and out of performing personas so often that you swiftly begin to realize that no one (not even the reader) truly knows who Vatis is. He relies on his ability to put up a smoke screen and only allow whoever he is performing for to see the bits he wants, to distract away from anything he is trying to hide. Vatis’ chameleon-esque personality makes him the perfect foil for Vidmar. The roguish treasure hunter is a wanted man; not only for his desertion and disgrace from the King’s service, but also for promises unfulfilled to Emre’s leading crime lord. A life on the run has made him not only lethal with a knife, but instilled the sort of careful perception and intuition needed to see through Vatis’ BS to the eccentric, fragile man beneath. They’re a true odd couple pairing of cowardly and courageous, witty in their own ways—Vatis with the cutting wit of his trade and Vidmar with the dark humour of a soldier—with an endless supply of banter from both of them that shines through in multiple tit-for-tat exchanges that leave you tittering.
Tales & Treasure is a great choice for readers who love a character-driven plot inside of a traditional, classic fantasy quest with twists and turns, danger and charisma, and secrets layered on secrets as the characters are so much more than what they seem.
For my full in-depth review, check out my Substack: The Word Dump.
The character building shines in the novel. From the onset when we meet Vatis, he is the quintessential bard; somewhat arrogant, a bit pompous, and endlessly adaptable. He consciously slips into and out of performing personas so often that you swiftly begin to realize that no one (not even the reader) truly knows who Vatis is. He relies on his ability to put up a smoke screen and only allow whoever he is performing for to see the bits he wants, to distract away from anything he is trying to hide. Vatis’ chameleon-esque personality makes him the perfect foil for Vidmar. The roguish treasure hunter is a wanted man; not only for his desertion and disgrace from the King’s service, but also for promises unfulfilled to Emre’s leading crime lord. A life on the run has made him not only lethal with a knife, but instilled the sort of careful perception and intuition needed to see through Vatis’ BS to the eccentric, fragile man beneath. They’re a true odd couple pairing of cowardly and courageous, witty in their own ways—Vatis with the cutting wit of his trade and Vidmar with the dark humour of a soldier—with an endless supply of banter from both of them that shines through in multiple tit-for-tat exchanges that leave you tittering.
Tales & Treasure is a great choice for readers who love a character-driven plot inside of a traditional, classic fantasy quest with twists and turns, danger and charisma, and secrets layered on secrets as the characters are so much more than what they seem.
For my full in-depth review, check out my Substack: The Word Dump.
October 1, 2024
This is a great first effort from a new author. I read Tales & Treasure via a Substack preview. Rob has a good feel for pacing, builds his characters well, is descriptive without being overly wordy, and smoothly intertwines various plot points. I'm excited to see where this goes and what else he has in mind for his upcoming books. Give it a chance and help out a newly published author!
September 18, 2024
Tales & Treasure is an excellent fantasy novel that straddles between a cozy adventure and an epic journey. The two main characters - Vatis and Vidmar - are both seeking something different, yet come together on a quest to seek a powerful crown. It's a bit of a meta-story, the book and tale motifs throughout the book are deftly woven in, and while the ending leaves room for a sequel it is satisfying in its own regard. I highly recommend it for fantasy fans!
January 7, 2025
I remember the very first time I watched ‘French New Wave’ movie Last Year in Marienbad and instantly feeling so aware that I was witnessing something original and unprecedented in film-making. That same feeling I got when I first read Lord Dunsany’s The King of Elfland’s Daughter (link); I knew then this was ground-breaking content. That was years ago…
Fast-forward to today, and the same phenomenon occurred to me as I read Tales & Treasures, the fantasy novel debut by Rob Mortell.
It’s not the norm in this day and age to grab a fantasy-based novel and be surprised by its originality or uniqueness. In an over-saturated marketplace of Tolkien’s ripoffs, finding fiction writing like that found in Tales & Treasure is a rarity, and this goes as a massive credit to the author R. Mortell.
AMBIENCE :
As Mortell says:
“Like many fantasy authors it started with Tolkien, but my more modern influences are Patrick Rothfus and Scott Lynch. The way they blend interesting characters with high-quality prose is unmatched.”
The way this story unfolds, the way the characters behave and interact all contributes to create an exclusive ambience, and it is ‘unmatched’. It is fantasy but you’re not going to see fire-spitting dragons or wizards shooting lightning from their hands. Instead, it is subtle, refined, at times corky, and it very much reminds me of the French cinema of the late ‘60s with characters that feel ‘ordinary-but-not-really’; characters that make us laugh even in situations which are not laughable at all.
PLOT:
Instead of the story building around a king, or a knight, or a mage, it builds around a bard, which is a brilliant idea and instantly sets up the tone for a different kind of fantasy ride. Vatis is our bard, and he has a ‘dark past’. His fate entangles with that of a treasure hunter, Vidmar, former member of the royal army, also with a dark past of his own. The two of them are subsequently joined by 12-year-old orphan girl Mia, and Kamet, former army pal of Vidmar.
Why would a bard tag along with a treasure hunter? Simple: Vatis feels that Vidmar’s current task of recovering the crown of Slavanes Greco, the crown of the true king of Emre, will provide all the content necessary to write his next big story, which would make him the most prominent bard in all of Emre. But what transpires is a fate that none of the players could possibly predict. Both Vatis and Vidmar are in for a very unexpected adventure, as they follow the vague clues to find the coveted crown.
CHARACTERS:
This is for me the high point of this book, but also the low point of it. Let me explain:
These are some of the most lively, ‘3D’ characters I’ve read about in most new fantasy literature. The way Vatis, Vidmar, and even supporting characters like Mia come to life is truly something that must be experienced firsthand! We feel engaged with them from the first to the last page. Their large spectrum of emotions, their sense of humor, even their sense of hopelessness at times is so well timed by Mortell that several times I had to pause, breathe, and think about what I’d just read! Just fantastic characters all around!
THE NEGATIVES:
As always we gotta mention the good of course, but also the bad and the ugly as well. Fortunately this book does not contain any ‘ugly’ to speak of but it does contain some ‘bad’:
Language: there is an extreme amount of profanity and crude language that was not needed for these characters. They already shine as they are, there was no need to have them drop so many F words and say so many crude ‘mamma’s jokes’. Virtually every character except for young Mia cusses like a sailor without adding one iota of richness to their established personalities. Not sure why Mortell wanted to go that route but this hardly works in fiction except in some sci-fi and detective novels for example. All that does here is cheapen the finished work in my opinion.
The bard’s performances: bards are supposed to be performers even when they are simply telling a story to an audience. If they narrate their stories in standard prose you no longer feel like you’re listening to a performance. I’m not saying that our bard Vatis should be more like Shakespeare but even a simple meter tweak to the writing could create that difference between ‘Vatis speaking’ and ‘Vatis performing’.
CONCLUSIONS:
All in all, despite the negative aspects I just mentioned, this story and characters are too original to give the book less than 5 stars. As a reviewer sometimes I find myself torn between giving a book 4/5 stars and 5/5 stars. If a book is not ‘perfect’ in certain aspects but it oozes with originality and ‘3D’ characters I might still give it 5/5 because I want to encourage the author to keep pursuing this and to encourage readers to buy and read the book.
I hope my advice is taken as constructive criticism but also I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy most aspects of this fantastic debut novel!
🦀
Fast-forward to today, and the same phenomenon occurred to me as I read Tales & Treasures, the fantasy novel debut by Rob Mortell.
It’s not the norm in this day and age to grab a fantasy-based novel and be surprised by its originality or uniqueness. In an over-saturated marketplace of Tolkien’s ripoffs, finding fiction writing like that found in Tales & Treasure is a rarity, and this goes as a massive credit to the author R. Mortell.
AMBIENCE :
As Mortell says:
“Like many fantasy authors it started with Tolkien, but my more modern influences are Patrick Rothfus and Scott Lynch. The way they blend interesting characters with high-quality prose is unmatched.”
The way this story unfolds, the way the characters behave and interact all contributes to create an exclusive ambience, and it is ‘unmatched’. It is fantasy but you’re not going to see fire-spitting dragons or wizards shooting lightning from their hands. Instead, it is subtle, refined, at times corky, and it very much reminds me of the French cinema of the late ‘60s with characters that feel ‘ordinary-but-not-really’; characters that make us laugh even in situations which are not laughable at all.
PLOT:
Instead of the story building around a king, or a knight, or a mage, it builds around a bard, which is a brilliant idea and instantly sets up the tone for a different kind of fantasy ride. Vatis is our bard, and he has a ‘dark past’. His fate entangles with that of a treasure hunter, Vidmar, former member of the royal army, also with a dark past of his own. The two of them are subsequently joined by 12-year-old orphan girl Mia, and Kamet, former army pal of Vidmar.
Why would a bard tag along with a treasure hunter? Simple: Vatis feels that Vidmar’s current task of recovering the crown of Slavanes Greco, the crown of the true king of Emre, will provide all the content necessary to write his next big story, which would make him the most prominent bard in all of Emre. But what transpires is a fate that none of the players could possibly predict. Both Vatis and Vidmar are in for a very unexpected adventure, as they follow the vague clues to find the coveted crown.
CHARACTERS:
This is for me the high point of this book, but also the low point of it. Let me explain:
These are some of the most lively, ‘3D’ characters I’ve read about in most new fantasy literature. The way Vatis, Vidmar, and even supporting characters like Mia come to life is truly something that must be experienced firsthand! We feel engaged with them from the first to the last page. Their large spectrum of emotions, their sense of humor, even their sense of hopelessness at times is so well timed by Mortell that several times I had to pause, breathe, and think about what I’d just read! Just fantastic characters all around!
THE NEGATIVES:
As always we gotta mention the good of course, but also the bad and the ugly as well. Fortunately this book does not contain any ‘ugly’ to speak of but it does contain some ‘bad’:
Language: there is an extreme amount of profanity and crude language that was not needed for these characters. They already shine as they are, there was no need to have them drop so many F words and say so many crude ‘mamma’s jokes’. Virtually every character except for young Mia cusses like a sailor without adding one iota of richness to their established personalities. Not sure why Mortell wanted to go that route but this hardly works in fiction except in some sci-fi and detective novels for example. All that does here is cheapen the finished work in my opinion.
The bard’s performances: bards are supposed to be performers even when they are simply telling a story to an audience. If they narrate their stories in standard prose you no longer feel like you’re listening to a performance. I’m not saying that our bard Vatis should be more like Shakespeare but even a simple meter tweak to the writing could create that difference between ‘Vatis speaking’ and ‘Vatis performing’.
CONCLUSIONS:
All in all, despite the negative aspects I just mentioned, this story and characters are too original to give the book less than 5 stars. As a reviewer sometimes I find myself torn between giving a book 4/5 stars and 5/5 stars. If a book is not ‘perfect’ in certain aspects but it oozes with originality and ‘3D’ characters I might still give it 5/5 because I want to encourage the author to keep pursuing this and to encourage readers to buy and read the book.
I hope my advice is taken as constructive criticism but also I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy most aspects of this fantastic debut novel!
🦀
November 8, 2024
Tales and Treasure is an absolutely amazing read! This epic adventure has everything you want from a fantasy novel: excellent world-building, multiple POVs, a fast-paced and gripping plot, deep themes, fantastic dialogue, and unique characters. Every time I picked up this book, I found myself fully immersed in it because of the excellent writing. The imagery was perfect! The characters were witty and had so much personality. Throughout the novel, I often was on the edge of my seat. The dialogue felt so real that I laughed from the back-and-forth. I even cried!
I can not believe this is a debut novel. I am so excited to read more of this series!
I can not believe this is a debut novel. I am so excited to read more of this series!
December 25, 2024
I really enjoyed the folklore stories that Vatis would tell that would flesh out the world. I think voice for all characters is done well, especially Vatis. I do think the pacing is a bit weak at the start with their not being a strong hook for a while. Also, there are a few events that feel too coincidental that hurt the story for me a bit. However, I did enjoy the book and thought there was a lot of strong groundwork laid out. I'm looking forward to what comes next.
January 4, 2025
Though it is Robs first book and not my usual genre (fantasy) I really enjoyed it and can’t wait for the sequel!
December 19, 2024
4.5* A solid debut that shows a ton of promise! It's full of great worldbuilding and interesting, memorable characters that have their differences, but have to work together over the course of their journey. I grew very fond of them, and I get the sense there is still much to uncover. While I feel it lacked consistency in its tone and pacing, it was a satisfying read and I enjoyed following Vidmar and Vatis on their adventure.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews