Enter The Realm . . . through The Door Within trilogy by Wayne Thomas Batson. The Door Within, Rise of the Wyrm Lord, and The Final Storm tell of a kingdom ruled by a king unseen, threatened by a betraying evil, and populated by Glimpses.What's a Glimpse? I'll tell you in a bit.
The first thing to love about these books are their covers - rich, mysterious hardbacks. The kind of covers that bring a warm satisfaction when you see them sitting on your bookshelf.
The sweeping scope of the novels reminds me of Tolkien, while their accessibility brings to mind Narnia (gradual discovery disbelieved by those older). While the first book holds a bit of condescension - instead of experiencing the adventure with Aidan, you're viewing young Aidan's adventure - the series improves in that respect in the following books.
These books are what I think of as "passage" fantasies - someone (or more than one) travels from this world into another. Batson adds a twist to this common fantasy element - every person in this world (referred to as the Mirror Realm) has a Glimpse twin - a person who's them but not quite them. Decisions one makes affects the other. And they can't meet, so when someone from this world enters The Realm, their Glimpse comes here.
It's a mind-boggling hypothesis that Batson pulls off with flair, though I did have a few fistfuls of unanswered questions by the trilogy's end (which I may post about in another entry if I have time - and spoilers would likely abound).
To read more about The Realm, visit the blogs below:
Jim Black
Jackie Castle
Valerie Comer
Karri Compton
Frank Creed
CSFF Blog Tour
Gene Curtis
Chris Deanne
Janey DeMeo
Tessa Edwards
April Erwin
Linda Gilmore
Beth Goddard
Marcus Goodyear
Todd Michael Greene
Leathel Grody
Karen Hancock
Sherrie Hibbs
Sharon Hinck
Joleen Howell
Kait
Karen
K. D. Kragen
Tina Kulesa
Lost Genre Guild
Kevin Lucia and The Bookshelf Reviews 2.0 - The Compendium
Rachel Marks
Shannon McNear
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Caleb Newell
Eve Nielsen
John Otte
Robin Parrish
Cheryl Russel
Hannah Sandvig
Mirtika Schultz
James Somers
Stuart Stockton
Steve Trower
Speculative Faith
Daniel I. Weaver
