By Julia on April 10, 2016 Kindle Edition Verified Purchase Review
“I absolutely loved the Falcon Heart series. Kryin’s story drew me in a way that few books have. The plot, characters and action packed scenes quickly draw in the reader and keep you hanging with every chapter. After quickly finishing the first book, I bought the second one because I couldn’t wait to see how the story would finish. I would definitely recommend this book and all others by Azalea Dabill.”
Falcon Heart (Falcon Chronicle Book I)
Parents, are you looking for books for a young adult reader that inspires as it entertains? The Falcon Chronicle delivers clean fantasy that isn’t sanitized within an inch of its life. Skip the smut and keep the adventure, the reality of life.
The first book in a historical YA fantasy series, Falcon Heart is a medieval adventure where a heroine struggles to return to her people and find her place. But first she must save her stronghold.
Similar to Sherwood Smith’s Crown Duel, it is set in the time of Stephen Lawhead’s King Raven. The Falcon Chronicle series premise explores what might happen when an early form of Korean martial art, Soo Bak Do, reaches Britannia with an exiled warrior who teaches an enslaved stronghold first daughter.
A band of Arabic slavers kidnap Kyrin Cieri and murder her mother on the coast of Britannia. Forced to sail for Araby with an exiled warrior from the East and a peasant girl closer than a sister by blood, Kyrin learns Subak to protect those she loves. She vows to face the blade that killed her mother and gain justice. For she must return to her father’s side and take up the stronghold keys as Cierheld stronghold’s first daughter.
On the perilous caravan march to Oman, a strange dagger of Damascus steel shaped like a falcon pursues Kyrin through tiger-haunted dreams. She escapes from the raiders of the sands only to be embroiled in the secrets of the caliph’s court.
Kyrin’s master wants many things of her. But first he must make her his tool and the caliph’s.
To keep her friends from a lingering death, Kyrin Cieri, keeper of the keys, takes up justice against hate and a dagger against her master’s sword. She can save them . . . if she can pay the price of hope that the falcon dagger demands.
Kyrin’s story gives shape and mystery to medieval fantasy, to martial art, and to its roots in the past and its flowering in the twenty-first century. Words hold power.
What walls bar you from wonder, from courage, from saving those you love? Is it a fear of the unknown, a fear of a known pain, or fear of … ? Overcome your fears in another’s journey, find the keys to overcoming your own walls, and enjoy a clean fantasy adventure.
Don’t miss an epic, historical, and family friendly new world.
Excerpt:
With a deep breath, Kyrin shook back her long hair. She had not thought to watch the sea from her god-father’s tower without Celine this leaf-fall. Falcons were true—but friends cut sharp as a treacherous blade. Lord Fenwer’s tower gave her a high eyrie from storm for the second time in two years.
Another gust of wind batted shorter locks about her face. A chair creaked. Her mother padded across the stone behind her. Kyrin heard the sigh of a tunic dropped to the floor, the rustling of a dinner tunic donned. Rain spattered the window sill and misted on the floor, a breath of coolness wafting against her ankles.
Father was not here to tickle her mother’s ear with a kiss and a low laugh on the morrow—to seal her freedom for a day in the woods, thick now with yellow-clad willow and birch and green pines. He could not tell Mother she would be safe outside Lord Fenwer’s stronghold despite the sea-mist and the cliffs, flying her hunters of the air. The sea-thunder boded ill. The moaning wind around the tower would batter any hawk or falcon to a bolt of wet feathers hurtling to ruin under the trees.
“What do you think, Kyrin?”
Kyrin started and turned, with a swift smile.
Her mother’s tunic, the rich ochre of autumn, flowed to the tips of her doeskin shoes. The saffron sleeves of her over-tunic brushed her girdle, and from the braided linen swung the key of Cierheld. A beautiful, handspan-long, angular piece of iron.
Kyrin stared at it grimly. Before many more sunrises she would hand her own key to a lord. And she had not yet found him.
Get Falcon Heart on Amazon here.
“Falcon Heart by Azalea Dabill stands unique as a mix of medieval, romance, history, fantasy, and mystery with a strong Christian undercurrent. Written in flowing, fast-paced, poetic prose, it transports the reader to another place and time, rich in description and visual images. While very much a new genre to me, Ms. Dabill has done an amazing job of creating a story world that wraps the reader in its spell. For young adult readers on up, if you are intrigued by the timely themes of Christian vs. Arab culture as well as those already mentioned, you will not be disappointed.” – Norma Gail