The Battle of Evernight

The Barnes Noble ReviewThe Battle of Evernight, the final installment in Australian author Cecilia Dart-Thornton's Bitterbynde trilogy, takes place in Erith, a richly detailed realm filled with a plethora of magical seelie (benevolent) and unseelie (malevolent) creatures. Seamlessly mixing British and Irish myths, fairy tales and folklore, Dart-Thornton (called Australia's answer to J.R.R. Tolkien) creates an extraordinarily wild world, comparable to Middle-earth, that can be both breathtakingly beautiful and, in the blink of an eye, the stuff of nightmares.With her memory slowly returning, the protagonist, Tahquil, along with her friends Caitri and Viviana, vows to find the Bitterbynde Gate, the only remaining passage into the world of Faeran. By finding the elusive gate, Tahquil can stop the impending war between feuding immortal Faeran brothers trapped in Erith: Angavar, the High King of the Fair Realm, and his younger twin brother, Morragan, the Raven Prince. The battle between Angavar and his followers and Morragan and his unseelie legions will likely take hundreds of thousands of lives, but if Tahquil can find the gate in time, all the immortals stranded in Erith will surely end their conflict and return posthaste to the Fair Realm.Fans of folklore and fairy tales should make it a point to read Dart-Thornton's entire Bitterbynde trilogy (The Ill-Made Mute, and The Lady of the Sorrows are the first two books). Her fluid, almost hypnotic writing style is reminiscent of Elizabethan poetry or Celtic music. In short, this is beautifully written, timeless fantasy. Paul Goat Allen