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The Damascus Guild #1
Eternity's Gate
The evil they buried was never truly dead - only waiting.
For fans of The Lord of the Rings, A Game of Thrones, The Name of the Wind, and The Way of Kings comes an epic fantasy filled with ancient evil, noble houses, political intrigue, and the kind of destiny that demands sacrifice. This is a sweeping tale of loyalty, betrayal, and the courage it takes to stand when the world begins to fall apart.
Five hundred years ago, the Guildlands stood on the edge of annihilation. A monstrous darkness rose to divide kingdoms, corrupt hearts, and bring civilization to its knees. Only an uneasy alliance between the Four Clans, the Druids, and the mysterious Dur’i—the Eternal Ones—managed to imprison it beneath ancient seals.
For centuries, peace has endured.
Now that peace is cracking.
The seals are failing—and time is running out.
Caedus, heir to one of the great clan seats, was raised to inherit power, tradition, and duty. He was never meant to inherit war. But when rumors of demons and devastation begin to spread—and strike terrifyingly close to home—Caedus is pulled into a deadly maze of espionage, treachery, and forbidden magic. In a world where allies hide secrets and enemies wear friendly faces, every choice carries a price.
As the ancient prison weakens and shadows rise once more, the Guildlands teeter on the brink of ruin. To save his people, Caedus must embrace the leadership he never wanted…or watch everyone he loves be swallowed by a darkness older than memory.
Some legends are warnings. Some nightmares return.
If you crave immersive worlds, unforgettable stakes, political scheming, and heroes forged in fire, step into the Guildlands today—before the darkness rises again.
For fans of The Lord of the Rings, A Game of Thrones, The Name of the Wind, and The Way of Kings comes an epic fantasy filled with ancient evil, noble houses, political intrigue, and the kind of destiny that demands sacrifice. This is a sweeping tale of loyalty, betrayal, and the courage it takes to stand when the world begins to fall apart.
Five hundred years ago, the Guildlands stood on the edge of annihilation. A monstrous darkness rose to divide kingdoms, corrupt hearts, and bring civilization to its knees. Only an uneasy alliance between the Four Clans, the Druids, and the mysterious Dur’i—the Eternal Ones—managed to imprison it beneath ancient seals.
For centuries, peace has endured.
Now that peace is cracking.
The seals are failing—and time is running out.
Caedus, heir to one of the great clan seats, was raised to inherit power, tradition, and duty. He was never meant to inherit war. But when rumors of demons and devastation begin to spread—and strike terrifyingly close to home—Caedus is pulled into a deadly maze of espionage, treachery, and forbidden magic. In a world where allies hide secrets and enemies wear friendly faces, every choice carries a price.
As the ancient prison weakens and shadows rise once more, the Guildlands teeter on the brink of ruin. To save his people, Caedus must embrace the leadership he never wanted…or watch everyone he loves be swallowed by a darkness older than memory.
Some legends are warnings. Some nightmares return.
If you crave immersive worlds, unforgettable stakes, political scheming, and heroes forged in fire, step into the Guildlands today—before the darkness rises again.
452 pages, ebook
First published May 12, 2026
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Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
ARC Review
Eternity's Gate by J.C. Wines
2,5/5 stars
As a premise Eternity's Gate promises an old school fantasy adventure, there's a big bad looming and our heroes must defeat them with flying wolf mounts! As a fan of fantasy new and old this peaked my interest, especially since it involves flying wolves. Pretty much what you would have wanted the Dire Wolves to be, or thats just me?
The early chapters are very promising and do a good job of introducing the characters we will be following during the journey. At times it can be hard to keep track of all the viewpoints, but this is not rare for this type of book trying to set up a grand fantasy setting.
We are quickly thrown into the action with the murder of one of four leaders of the Guilds and the chase of a suspected murderer who flew of on a winged wolf. Very happy we quickly started using the wolves here. What follows is a quest to find out about the murder from multiple viewpoints, uncovering a dark influence rising in power and influence all coming together in an epic ending leaving enough questions to be answered in the following entries in the series.
Where the beginning and ending were plenty entertaining, the bulk of the book is a very slow and drawn out. Pages of travelling, sleeping, travelling, repeat before setting up camp. A very long training arc, where our heroes gain "powers" that would normally take years to train according to other characters. Lot's of random bathing and frolicing in water along the way. At some point this friendly water time will even lead to some scandelous accusations!
Characters are introduced and occasionally get a chapter that have no real influence on the story in this book. At two times in the book two different character all of a sudden are revealed to be major coffee addicts, to the point were one of them would get intense headaches if they don't get their two cups a day, this only to be never mentioned again. Almost as if our writer was either in a coffee shop or had a serious hunkering for some.
Without wanting to be to negative, this middle part of the book could have used a lot of streamlining to make it flow a lot better. A bunch of characters could have been left out, to maybe appear in later books with more fleshed out stories if they are essential to later parts of the story, instead of being introduced without much of an impact on this part. Also there is pretty much no flying wolf action in this part as well.
After this slow middle part, the book picks up a lot of steam and all storylines come together for a fairly satisfying conclusion to the story. There are some borderline deus-ex-machina's going on in this part, but these situations where in part set up throughout the book. Also finally we get some flying wolf action. The action scenes here are pretty well done and I blew through this part of the story, especially after the slower middle part. Throughout this more fast paced action heavy ending there are a couple moments, as there are troughout the book that completely pulled my out of the story and had me eyerolling pretty hard.
I'll give a short example with very light spoilers from the middle of the battle. We are in the middle of a heavy confrontation, the gates of the keep have just been breached. Waves of enemies are crashing in and the shieldwall has failed after a third wave of enemies crashes into it, many of their foes and allies are dying, blood is literally raining down:
"Stay as close to me as you can," Caedus said. "I'm not lsoing either of you today, and that's an order."
"If these horses could fly, we wouldn't have a problem," Tyro said. "Your excellency," he added with a smirk and a bow.
"All right, you two, that's enough. Now, let's show these rutting bastards what happens when you mess with us."
Caedus and Tyro didn't know what to think of illaum cursing, but they both smirked and added their voices to the battle cry.
Followed by them joining the battle.
As a whole I was intruiged by the premise and it shows where a lot of it's inspiration came from. The ending is what largely saved the book for me and unexplored and unanswered parts of the story have me curious enough to pick up the next book in the series when it comes out. I hope following entries in The Damascus Guild series are a bit more streamlined and have a LOT more flying wolf action.
Thank you Netgalley, J.C. Wines and Warrington Publishing for providing me with this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Eternity's Gate by J.C. Wines
2,5/5 stars
As a premise Eternity's Gate promises an old school fantasy adventure, there's a big bad looming and our heroes must defeat them with flying wolf mounts! As a fan of fantasy new and old this peaked my interest, especially since it involves flying wolves. Pretty much what you would have wanted the Dire Wolves to be, or thats just me?
The early chapters are very promising and do a good job of introducing the characters we will be following during the journey. At times it can be hard to keep track of all the viewpoints, but this is not rare for this type of book trying to set up a grand fantasy setting.
We are quickly thrown into the action with the murder of one of four leaders of the Guilds and the chase of a suspected murderer who flew of on a winged wolf. Very happy we quickly started using the wolves here. What follows is a quest to find out about the murder from multiple viewpoints, uncovering a dark influence rising in power and influence all coming together in an epic ending leaving enough questions to be answered in the following entries in the series.
Where the beginning and ending were plenty entertaining, the bulk of the book is a very slow and drawn out. Pages of travelling, sleeping, travelling, repeat before setting up camp. A very long training arc, where our heroes gain "powers" that would normally take years to train according to other characters. Lot's of random bathing and frolicing in water along the way. At some point this friendly water time will even lead to some scandelous accusations!
Characters are introduced and occasionally get a chapter that have no real influence on the story in this book. At two times in the book two different character all of a sudden are revealed to be major coffee addicts, to the point were one of them would get intense headaches if they don't get their two cups a day, this only to be never mentioned again. Almost as if our writer was either in a coffee shop or had a serious hunkering for some.
Without wanting to be to negative, this middle part of the book could have used a lot of streamlining to make it flow a lot better. A bunch of characters could have been left out, to maybe appear in later books with more fleshed out stories if they are essential to later parts of the story, instead of being introduced without much of an impact on this part. Also there is pretty much no flying wolf action in this part as well.
After this slow middle part, the book picks up a lot of steam and all storylines come together for a fairly satisfying conclusion to the story. There are some borderline deus-ex-machina's going on in this part, but these situations where in part set up throughout the book. Also finally we get some flying wolf action. The action scenes here are pretty well done and I blew through this part of the story, especially after the slower middle part. Throughout this more fast paced action heavy ending there are a couple moments, as there are troughout the book that completely pulled my out of the story and had me eyerolling pretty hard.
I'll give a short example with very light spoilers from the middle of the battle. We are in the middle of a heavy confrontation, the gates of the keep have just been breached. Waves of enemies are crashing in and the shieldwall has failed after a third wave of enemies crashes into it, many of their foes and allies are dying, blood is literally raining down:
"Stay as close to me as you can," Caedus said. "I'm not lsoing either of you today, and that's an order."
"If these horses could fly, we wouldn't have a problem," Tyro said. "Your excellency," he added with a smirk and a bow.
"All right, you two, that's enough. Now, let's show these rutting bastards what happens when you mess with us."
Caedus and Tyro didn't know what to think of illaum cursing, but they both smirked and added their voices to the battle cry.
Followed by them joining the battle.
As a whole I was intruiged by the premise and it shows where a lot of it's inspiration came from. The ending is what largely saved the book for me and unexplored and unanswered parts of the story have me curious enough to pick up the next book in the series when it comes out. I hope following entries in The Damascus Guild series are a bit more streamlined and have a LOT more flying wolf action.
Thank you Netgalley, J.C. Wines and Warrington Publishing for providing me with this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Displaying 1 of 1 review