Chasing Fire

by Michelle M. Welch

Bantam Spectra, 403 pp, $6.50

Chasing Fire returns to the world of the Bright and the Dark, and Confidence Game.

Rindell Jorren, the twenty year old son of a governor of Dabian, is unsuited to follow his father’s footsteps. Rindell wants only to delve into the poetry and songs of the romantic cavaliers of yesteryear. His father has other plans. He has arranged a marriage to a heathen Azassian, daughter of a neighboring ruler.. She is mad, she is racked by nightmares, bound to the past, and is sought out by the wanderers on the fringe of reality. Elzith, the sage, sees clearly: a city burning, a search for faith, and a way that can save the world from the plague, but it will take all of them, and their companions to bring about the change.

Plenty of plot lines and action as well as good characters make this worthy of any fantasy lover’s library. I might have to go back and find her other books. It is a shared world rather than being promoted as a series. - Pam Allan