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Thank you, Jonathan Stark of the Portland Book Review!"Welsh fantasy meets gritty realism in J.M. Hofer’s Islands in the Mist, the first in a planned trilogy of novels. The first book focuses on the plight of four powerful tribes being targeted by the sorceress Cerridwen, who has created an army of the undead using the Black Cauldron and her powerful magic. She is opposed by Bran, warrior of the north, and by Lucia and Gwion, two magically gifted individuals who have a connection to the mysterious island where Cerridwen was born. Ancient weapons, powerful spirits, and figures from Celtic legend all twist together in an epic adventure to figure out Cerridwen’s true plans and put a stop to them.
The best feature of Islands in the Mist is its aesthetic. Hofer describes a rich world, painting a detailed Celtic environment that doesn’t feel far removed from a real-life Ireland, Norway, or Gaelic countryside. The story travels: from dark forests to lonely beaches, from spiritual planes to the underworld. If this were a video game, it would be Skyrim. It is an open world filled with folklore, begging for adventure. At the same time, it contains enough references to real historical events (the Romans, for instance, play a minor, but important, role in the story) that it gains a touch of magical surrealism. Like Tolkein’s MiddleEarth, this world just might have existed on the periphery of our legends."
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J.M. Hofer