Review by Jean Gordon

The Legacy of Lord Regret, by Sam Bowring, Hachette Australia, August 2012: Book one of the Strange Threads duology.

Sam Bowring is a name that's new to me. As it turns out, I must have been looking in the wrong direction, because this isn't his first book. It's not even his first series. Clearly there is a deficiency in my library which I will be hurrying to correct.

I approach new fantasy books, or perhaps I should say new fantasy authors, with both excitement and worry. I want to like their work. I want to love it. But there's a lot of fantasy out there, the genre has grown immeasurably over the last two decades or so, and like anything else a good portion of it is garbage.

So, like many a reader, while I'm always on the look-out for new gems, I am also aware that there's a fairly high possibility that I'm in for yet another Lord Of The Rings rip-off, with a storyline I could almost recite before I read a single page. A bastard son at this point is almost an inevitability, and if you add in a prophecy then you've got the start of a good drinking game.

Review by Jean Gordon

The Lord Of Lies, by Sam Bowring, Hachette Australia, August 2012: Book Two of the Strange Threads Duology.

I was very eager to pick up The Lord of Lies. The Legacy of Lord Regret had left me hanging, and I was very much looking forward to what I had every reason to expect would be a conclusion equally as strong as the start. As it turned out, while the book was very good, I don't know that it quite stands up to the first one.

The story picks up directly where The Legacy of Lord Regret left off, with the various players still trying to find (or make) a place for themselves in the world. Some, as one would expect, are doing better than others.