Imagine if The Sacketts were set in a medieval epic fantasy.
A family saga tracing the first few generations of Rehavan’s immortals, First Immortals introduces the House of Euel, tracing their bloodline from its humble origins among frontier settlers to its eventual role providing generals, court nobles, and regional rulers to the empire of Salinor.
Prepare yourself for court intrigue, poison, and assassination; gods and monsters; goblins, fairies, dragons, minotaurs, and elves; quests undertaken to spite the gods; and civil wars fought between empires and vassal states.
The House of Euel moves through it all. Watch their souls buckle beneath the weight of power, watch as a father’s ideals bend and shift when lifted by his children. Watch as power controls and alters those who wield it.
* * *
The first novel of this completed series, Ariel’s Tear follows Reheuel, an aging soldier haunted by his bloody past, seeking peace in a simple life on the Salinor frontier, raising his children, adoring his wife, his sword forgotten and rarely drawn.
When Reheuel and his family travel on a pilgrimage to neighboring Elicathaliss, the city of the innocent and childlike fairies, they find the city broken and ravaged, assaulted by the same tribe of goblins Reheuel had once fought in his youth. They discover the goblins have stolen a magical artifact, the enchanted gem responsible for creating the fairy race and granting them their magic—Ariel’s Tear.
Believing that the goblins intend to use the gem as a weapon against their village, Reheuel sends his family homeward with a warning. Accompanied by Ariel, the Fairy Queen, Reheuel sets off on a desperate quest to retrieve the Tear and end the threat before it can be realized.
An emotional and powerful story of loyalty, duty, family love, and the eternal clash between childhood’s innocence and the wisdom of age, Ariel’s Tear will draw you into the emotional turmoils of Reheuel as he is forced to separate from his family; his wife Tressa as she shepherds her children in a world suddenly grown far darker; their sons Geuel and Hefthon who find themselves dragged suddenly from boyhood to manhood; their daughter Veil who straddles the line between childhood’s innocence and the impending pain of knowledge; and the fairies Ariel and Randiriel who each must wrestle in their own ways with the breaking of Elicathaliss.
Ariel's Tear is the first book in the "First Immortals" series. It is followed by Ageless: Part 1.
Justin Rose is an emerging author from Superior Wisconsin. While he has previously published several short stories and poems in literary journals such as Black Denim Literature and Emerge Literary Journal, Ariel’s Tear represents his first published novel. Inspired by both the classics of Western literature and the speculative fiction of 20th century America, Rose’s work is a blend of literary art and speculative adventure that interweaves the higher themes of the classics with the adventurous spirit of genre fiction.
