Review: Blood Ties by Pamela Freeman (Castings #1)

For a change of pace I thought to myself, CC, READ A BOOK FROM THE ADULT SECTION OF THE LIBRARY.  So what did I do? Beeline towards the fantasy section. sigh, the best intentions.

A thousand years ago, the Eleven Domains were invaded and the original inhabitants forced on the road as Travelers, belonging nowhere, welcomed by no-one.   Now the Domains are governed with an iron fist by the Warlords, but there are wilder elements to the landscape which cannot be controlled and which may prove their undoing. Some are spirits of place, of water and air and fire and earth. Some are greater than these. And some are human.

Bramble: a village girl, whom no-one living can tame ... forced to flee from her home for a crime she did not commit. 

Ash: apprentice to a safeguarder, forced to kill for an employer he cannot escape. 

Saker: an enchanter, who will not rest until the land is returned to his people. 

As their three stories unfold, along with the stories of those whose lives they touch, it becomes clear that they are bound together in ways that not even a stonecaster could foresee - bound by their past, their future, and their blood.

This is full fledged fantasy, new worlds, magic, ghosts, and it was totally enthralling.

Originality: 8, its hard to build new worlds, but this one is great, somehow still becomes real without the pages of Tolkien and R.R. Martin's descriptions of things likes cloaks and feasts (THANK YOU FREEMAN!)
Absurdity: 5, its fantasy, so by design it is totally absurd, just accept the genre.
Paranormal Romance: 3.  This is not the point of this book.   I am sure a few people were mislead by the "adult" label, but there are no sweaty palms, beating hearts and low cut corsets in this book.
Harry-Potterness: 8.  This book switches points of few between the main characters, and the side characters in a way that builds the world without tedious descriptions, and I found it clever and unique.  It kept the story moving fast and kept me hooked.

I would recommend this book to anyone who has ever enjoyed a good Rand O'Thor novel.... and if you don't know who that  is: WHEEL OF TIME, prepare to lose a few years of your life, I did circa 2007-2009.