First, I was taken out onto the wild Marshlands then I was taken to the dark, seedy Lowside while this took me to the beautiful and serene School of Faith – a place of peace, education, power and history, with its marble buildings and lush green grass, where there is the opportunity for fame and glory if Roan and Kay are allowed to stay! I enjoyed having this pleasant and safe setting however don’t get thinking this means there is nothing scary. Like previous threads this new one gave me a view of another area/side to the kingdom of Aedaron. I really liked them both and found myself willing them on, particularly poor Kay. Yet on arrival they find themselves divided, as Roan excels in his training Kay desperately struggles to keep up. Ronan and Kay are very close to each other and have promised to face everything together. It also cleverly gives Gelineau’s and King’s series a young adult thread. This gives the reader the opportunity to watch them grow and, hopefully, follow their path to success like their fellow orphans Elinor and Alys.

Unlike the previous novellas I have read, Roan and Kay are not grown up orphans but instead they are still young, naïve and vulnerable. Failure will mean an end to all their dreams and the prospect of life out in the cold, dark and dangerous world alone. However, on arrival they are given just one month to prove their worth by passing the entry trial of pushing past the veil and touching the magical power within. Now, Roan and Kay are journeying together to the city with hopes and dreams of entering the prestige School of Faith to train to become a legendary Razor. Who have been torn from the only home and family they’ve ever known, after a terrible fire destroyed their orphanage and killed most of it’s inhabitants.

In Faith and Moonlight, we are introduced to teenage orphans Roan and Kay.

Turns out these orphans all originally knew each other and this novella takes the reader back in time to the tragic fire at their orphanage which saw them separated and scattered across the kingdom. Also, I have read about another orphan Alys, who is a hardened survivor of the dangerous, poverty-stricken underworld of the capital city in the Best Left in the Shadows thread. Previously I have read about Elinor a brave orphan girl who rose to be the King’s Reaper in the A Reaper of Stone thread. So much so I didn’t wait long into this year to continue my reading with Faith and Moonlight the first novella in a third thread of their epic series. Last year, I read and enjoyed four of Mark Gelineau’s & Joe King’s novellas from two threads of their fantasy series, Echo of the Ascended.

Faith and Moonlight by Mark Gelineau