She approached the gate. God must be on the other side. She pushed it open, but did not find paradise, but rather a void filled only with noise and shifting colors that made her mind hurt. Amid the tumult, she felt something moving. No moving, really, but coming.

What pact are you seeking, child?

Larissa knew about pacts. They were dangerous if you used the wrong kind of faie. Whoever this was didn’t have a body, but she could feel it close by, as if it filled her very bones. It sounded like a woman.

“Vyr are trying to kill us all. We need to kill them instead.”

Heir to the Raven by J. Wesley Bush is a thrilling read, an original story well told.

The story begins with young Larissa, one of the few magical characters in this fantasy of kingdom politics. She stumbles into saving her village in the scene quoted above, but that raises everyone’s fears that she’s a witch. They summon the duke’s men to take her away to be examined by the king’s magician. She eventually learns she has taken the greatest risk of her life.

Next we meet Selwyn, the duke’s fourth son who wants very much to kill a wild boar-like animal so that he can become a scholastic knight. If his hopes pan out (meaning he doesn’t die), the hunt will be the most warfare he ever sees. His father won’t like it, but he hasn’t liked anything about him for years. As a knight, he can escape his family and do something interesting, if not worthwhile.

All of that comes to an end when Selwyn suddenly becomes the new duke of the Jandarian savanna, moving this novel into the coming-of-age category. That would be true for both Selwyn and Larissa, but with so many characters, political mysteries, suspicions and deceit, the young stars don’t get much time to stand around and watch their feet grow.

In this light-handed fantasy we hear of a few unusual beasts and a bit about greater and lesser faie, both light and dark. Securing an agreement with an outer faie is called pactmaking. The uses and dangers of it color most of Larissa’s story. But most of what we see of it comes from the bad guys, shamans ushering barbarous throngs into battle as an act of worship to a dark faie. At times I wondered if someone could throw out some good magic, but that probably doesn’t fit the scope of the story.

Somewhere I read Bush describing his tale as a strong PG-13; it definitely is that. There are some nasty deaths, plenty of natural vulgarity, and some sexual subject matter only lightly described.

The meat of it is in realistic characters with many diverse perspectives. A conniving villain doesn’t stare out a window, twirling his mustache; instead he professes loyalty to the king as he works quietly to undermine him. The brash soldier is not a bumbling rebel, but a loyal subject. Even the petulant king, which is a character type I dislike, is handled skillfully.

And this being book one of a series, it wraps up nicely while leaving many ends loose. You really should go buy this book, if only to support the creation of the sequels. I look forward seeing what happens next.