Shadow's Son (Shadow Saga Book 1)

The thrilling Shadow Saga begins in Shadow’s Son—“a first-rate sword-and-sorcery tale, with intriguing characters, that moves at a quick pace” (Booklist).In the city of Othir, there are two kinds of people—the dead and those ones who made them that way.Caim is certainly not dead. Orphaned and adrift, Caim grows up to become a cold-blooded assassin with the aid of his ethereal companion Kit—a useful-but-maddening spirit only he can see or hear. And as far as Caim is concerned, he doesn’t need anyone else getting that close to him.But that changes when he’s betrayed on what should have been a simple job—and his only chance for survival lies with Josephine, the young daughter of the very nobleman he was hired to eliminate.Soon Caim is caught in a wide-ranging conspiracy that stretches from Othir’s gilded halls of power to its bloodied alleyways. He must stay sharp if he is to uncover a cabal of traitors, keep Josey alive, and confront the forgotten truth of his own dark past…

From Publishers Weekly

Sprunk's debut novel, filled with the clichés and conventions of heroic fantasy, is amateur in its originality. Caim is an assassin with a tragic and slightly mysterious background. Othir is Caim's adopted city, a city populated entirely by villains and victims. Betrayed by his colleagues, Caim is left with Josephine, the daughter of the man who was to be Caim's next victim, as an unwilling ally against hosts of conniving religious fanatics, conspirators, and evil rival assassins. Sprunk's prose is leaden and riddled with lumps of tedious exposition, his characters are prototypes of the genre, and even his setting is the usual sort of degenerate, decaying imperial city-with no attempt to distinguish his version of this established trope. The result is a journey through a tired plot, with nothing particular to reward the reader for the time invested. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Like many other assassin characters, Caim is an orphan. But he has a ghostlike companion, Kit, whom only he can hear and see, and an uncanny ability to manipulate shadows. Set in a kingdom where the religious are not so holy and the nobility are corrupt, Caim has no loyalties and few scruples. He reluctantly accepts a contract to assassinate a nobleman, only to find that someone else got there first. He and the nobleman's daughter, Josey, become an unlikely pair in the search for her father's killers and the people who set up Caim. The intrigue, action scenes, and ever-more-revealing character insights are masterfully woven together in a book the reader won't want to put down. Questions about the origin of Caim's shadow sorcery and Kit's identity are broadly touched upon but never fully revealed, leaving readers to wonder if there will be another book to tie up the loose pieces. Overall, a first-rate sword-and-sorcery tale, with intriguing characters, that moves at a quick pace. --Rebecca Gerber

About the Author

Larissa Gallagher was born in Australia and is now based in Los Angeles. With a background as a classically trained actor and musical theater graduate, she works extensively in theater, animation, video games, and audiobooks.Dylan Thomas was born in Swansea, Wales on 27 October 1914. In 1934 his first book of poetry, Eighteen Poems appeared, followed by Twenty-five Poems in 1936, Deaths and Entrances in 1946 and in 1952 his final volume, Collected Poems. He also published many short stories, wrote filmscripts, broadcast stories and talks, did a series of lecture tours in the United States and wrote Under Milkwood, the radio play.During his fourth lecture tour of the United States in 1953, a few days after his 39th birthday, he collapsed in his New York hotel and died on November 9th at St. Vincent's Hospital. His body was sent back to Laugharne, Wales, where his grave is marked by a simple wooden cross.In June 1994, his wife, Caitlin Thomas, died in Italy, where she had spent most of the years of her life after the death of Dylan Thomas. Her body is buried next to his.Colleen Delany has been a sparkling jewel in the crown of Washington's vastly talented acting community for thirty-seven days now and will confidently challenge to a fierce best out of three in "paper-rock-scissors" anyone wishing to topple her from that lofty perch. Primarily a stage actress, --having played roles at Shakespeare Theatre Company, Goodman Theatre, Arena Stage, Signature Theatre, Folger Shakespeare Library, Studio Theatre, Olney Theatre, Woolly Mammoth, Theater J, Washington Stage Guild, Theater of the First Amendment, and Source Theatre, among others--Ms. Delany does a you-name-it of various acting jobs, including audiobook narration.Richard Rohan has been a stage, film, and voiceover actor for the past twenty years. He has narrated hundreds of audiobooks, in every genre, and was awarded the 2003 Audie Award winner for Nonfiction and the 2008 Best Voice in Science Fiction & Fantasy by AudioFile magazine. He directed and performed on the acclaimed Space Fantasy audio drama series Deathstalker. Rohan can also be heard on Macmillan Audio's historical series, The American Presidents.

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