The Summoner, Book One in The Chronicles of the Necromancer, by Gail Martin, is a non-stop fantasy adventure that weaves together magic, ghosts, intrigue and romance in a compelling alternative medieval setting.

In The Summoner, the dwellers of The Winter Kingdoms live with the dead.  Ghosts meddle in the affairs of the living.  Since the death of the last great Summoner, restless spirits have had no one to reconcile grievances among the dead, the undead and the living.  Tris Drayke, the last Summoner’s mage-heir, may die before he can come into his full power.  Fleeing for his life when his family is murdered, Tris is pursued by an evil mage.  Tris must outrun the usurper’s bounty hunters and find the sanctuary of a friendly court to raise an army and reclaim the throne.  His greatest danger is his own untrained magic, which he must tame in order to avenge his family and defeat the reborn Obsidian King.

Martin does a good job with an ensemble cast of characters whose motivation is believable and who have their own plausible reasons to help defeat the usurper, King Jared, and his evil mage, Foor Arontala.  Tris, the late king’s second son, must risk everything to free his kingdom and gain the thing he never desired, the crown of Margolan. Three friends flee with Tris when they witness the king’s murder.  They must come to terms with Tris’ newly revealed magic, and how it changes the man they thought they knew.  Three new friends, an adventurer with a dark past, a healer with a tragic secret and a swordswoman with reasons of her own, join them on the journey. 

Arontala hopes to loose the soul of the great dark mage known as the Obsidian King, and use that power to crush The Winter Kingdoms.  Fifty years before, Tris’ grandmother, the legendary spirit mage Bava K’aa, bound the soul of the Obsidian King to an orb called Soulcatcher, a portal to the abyss.  Tris has only one chance to harness his powerful, wild magic before he and his friends must attempt to win back the throne, destroy Arontala and keep the spirit of the Obsidian King from rising again.

Martin draws together her knowledge of medieval history and folklore in a well-woven tale that balances suspense, action and romance.  Her characters become real as their shadowed pasts, hidden agendas, fears and old losses surface to affect their quest.

Martin’s debut novel offers no perfect heroes; rather, the characters are scarred people haunted as much by the past as they are by restless spirits.  Discovering what haunts each character and how those ghosts can be laid to rest is a unifying thread throughout The Summoner.

The book ends with a cliffhanger.  To learn the fate of Tris and his friends, readers will need Book Two in The Chronicles of the Necromancer, The Summoner Returns, due out in early 2008. For more about The Summoner, visit www.ChrnoiclesOfTheNecromancer.com.

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