Overview
A mountain community under siege rediscovers its lost roots--and its magic--in the grit of an outcast girl, the heart of a stranger, and the mystical touch of lost seer's blood. A book once honored by Andre Norton in the Gryphon Award.
When Blaine Kendricks discovers strangers in Shadow Hollers, she thinks they've come to trade. She couldn't be more wrong.
When Dacey Childers comes to Shadow Hollers, Blaine's family thinks he's there to hunt game. They couldn't be more wrong.
When the Annekteh come to Shadow Hollers, they think the isolated community living there has no way to resist their invasion.
They're pretty much right on target.
But the last man of the lost seer's blood has returned, and is about to draw Blaine into his magic, his adventure...and the most dangerous hunt she could ever imagine.
"With this book, Doranna Durgin displays her customary precision in plot (tangled yet plausible, with tension that fairly hums from the page), setting (richly rendered and full of fresh, original details that truly delight), and characterization (thoughtful, layered, and well able to drive the plot).... Seer's Blood is low fantasy at its very best, showing how great events affect people on a small scale."
--Hypatia's Hoard
"SEER'S BLOOD is a fast-paced magical adventure. Doranna Durgin imbues her characters with heart and soul, making the reader care about them in ways that are rare in fiction."
--Alan Meitlowski, BookHound
"Doranna Durgin has been quietly turning out low key but very intriguing fantasy novels, of which this is the newest and in many ways the best."
--SF Chronicle
"The author creates high adventure with a subtle touch of romance here. Durgin's writing is full of mountain flavor, and her characters, both human and canine, are strong and clear.... This is an intense story that should appeal to...fantasy fans."
--VOYA
"On the surface Doranna Durgin's SEER'S BLOOD is Blaine's coming of age story in the deep hills of Appalachia, but this time of evil and Durgin's exactly right ear for dialect and regionalisms make it so much more. Readers will find themselves immersed in a world where self-reliance and resilience is brutally interrupted by evil in men's clothing and the return of magic to the lonely hollows. The fear and isolation associated with early mountain life is captured in this almost cultural study of Americana with its complex picture of love and loss. And the hounds, oh, my! Right along with Blaine, I fell in love with the hounds. This is a delicious read!"
--Cynthia Felice, Author of Downtime
Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940165258770 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Blue Hound Visions |
| Publication date: | 06/23/2011 |
| Sold by: | Draft2Digital |
| Format: | eBook |
| File size: | 819 KB |
About the Author
Beyond that, mostly she still prefers to hang around outside her New Mexico mountain home with the animals, riding dressage on her Lipizzan and training for performance sports with the dogs. She doesn't believe so much in mastering the beast within, but in channeling its power. For good or bad has yet to be decided...
Along with the occasional original, these Smashwords editions are author presentations of favorites once found on bookstore shelves.
Read an Excerpt
Seer's Blood
By Doranna Durgin
Baen Books
Copyright © 2000 Doranna DurginAll right reserved.
ISBN: 0-671-57877-4
Chapter One
The world spread out before the nekfehr, the slight curve of the horizon partially obscured by hazy clouds. Unlike the flat plains directly before the possessed vessel-a raven, black, sleek, and intelligent-this horizon rose in a nubbled, broken line.South.
They would go south.
It hadn't worked out well, last time; so many years, spent just in recovery. The hill folk had been waiting and ready, forewarned by their seers ... seers once growing thickly in that nurturing land.
The Annekteh had lost that fight-but they had made sure the next generations of the hills had no such guidance. They had burned the seers' painstaking records-generations of wisdom, lore, and observations-every one. They'd ransacked houses, stripping all charms, all the protections that could be copied and used even without a seer's understanding.
Every one.
And the seers themselves ... dead. Or fled.
The raven's wings caught a thermal; the bird adjusted-a shift of feather, a tilt of wing-and the annektehr within barely noticed. That was what the nekfehr, the vessels, were for; to do the things the Annekteh could not. To see, to fly ... to feel. The annektehr-one of many, so consumed by the Annekteh whole it didn't even understand the concept of individuality-stared at that bare hint of the mountains, letting the bird mind control their flight. Yes. It shared the image among the whole, among the Annekteh, even as it maintained awareness of each of its fellow annektehr at work in other vessels. Human bodies, mostly, supervising the insignificant, unTaken individuals that served the Annekteh.
Yes.
South. Where the lumber was not only abundant, but was imbued with the natural magic of the mountains-the same subtle magic of the plains, distilled and amplified and then submerged to run deep along the ridges. Magic that would protect the Annekteh, so deep that the humans barely knew it was there.
But the Annekteh knew.
And the Annekteh intended to have that magic, and that land, for their own. (Continues...)
Excerpted from Seer's Blood by Doranna Durgin Copyright © 2000 by Doranna Durgin. Excerpted by permission.
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