The Sorcerer King (Faerie Path Series #3) by Frewin Jones

From the Publisher

Tania has brought the long-lost Queen Titania back to Faerie from the Mortal World of modern London. But when they cross between the worlds, they find only devastation.

The Sorcerer King of Lyonesse -- ancient enemy of the Faerie Court -- has been released from his amber prison. As the wicked sorcerer regains his power, King Oberon, Tania's father, is imprisoned and the Faerie Court is being destroyed.

Tania and her true love, Edric, must travel the Realm to try to find and rescue King Oberon, who is their only hope for defeating the evil Sorcerer King. And Tania must prepare for battle . . . and to fight a war that she may not survive.

Children's Literature

In the Sorcerer King, six princesses are united with their mother, Queen Titania, to save their beloved home of Faerie that has been captured and ruled by the evil King of Lyonesse. He either holds their sister Rathina captive or she has betrayed all of them. To be victorious, our heroine Tania and her true love Edric must release her father, King Oberon, from the impenetrable amber prison of Ynis Maw that holds him. With a little of Queen Titania's magic, they travel across rough terrain where they find themselves in the company of yet another enemy, Gabriel Drake. With a little luck and a lot of courage, they escape Drake and muster the power to release King Oberon. Alas, he has been held for so long that all his power has been drained and he collapses. Now the fate of Faerie must be determined by grit and determination, and maybe a little magic will find its way there too. Frewin Jones has created a delightful book that takes us all back to a simpler time to experience a fantastic tale. The characters are well defined, and the story circled around and came back to the reader bringing hope for a new day. This is book three of the series called "Faerie Path." Reviewer: Julia Beiker

Alan Review

This book is the perfect read for fantasy lovers. The Sorcerer King is The Lord of the Rings meets A Midsummer Night's Dream. Classic language, faerie princesses and evil magic combine to make this quest an adventure from beginning to end. The immortal realm of Faeries is in danger from the evil Sorcerer King of Lyonesse. The court of King Oberon and Queen Titania of A Midsummer Night's Dream fame is in danger. It is up to their seven daughters to invoke the Power of Seven to vanquish the Sorcerer King. Tania, the seventh daughter, has been living in modern London, and has just returned to her former Faerie Life, only to discover she must lead the mission to rescue Oberon. Each faerie princess owns a gift that aids the king, but one princess turns traitor. Without the Power of Seven, the princesses have no hope against their nemesis. Tania must find a way to reunite her sisters and her parents and save the immortal realm. Reviewer: Stephanie Stidham

KLIATT

The concluding book of the Faerie Path Trilogy begins where The Lost Queen left off as Tania, her sisters, Queen Titania and Edric arrive to find Faerie desolate and blighted under the rule of the evil Sorcerer King. They learn that King Oberon has been captured and sealed within an amber prison. The prison, in turn, has been bound with Isenmort and hidden somewhere in Faerie. Tania, Edric and two of Tania's sisters, Zara and Cordelia, set off for the forbidden land of Ynis Maw in hopes of rescuing Oberon and defeating the Sorcerer King and his minion Gabriel Drake. The story is readable but lacks the taut pace and energy of the first two books. Perhaps it makes a difference that nearly all the action takes place in Faerie; the plot becomes predictable. Tania and her companions face obstacles and narrowly avoid dangerous situations until the quest culminates in a final battle against the evil villains. The outcome is predictable for any reader well read in fantasy conventions. Finally, the characters seem less well defined; they react rather than act and the Faerie residents' pseudo-archaic language becomes simply annoying. In spite of all this, however, libraries will have readers invested in the trilogy and its outcome. This title is recommended for such libraries. Age Range: Ages 12 to 18. REVIEWER: Donna Scanlon (Vol. 42, No. 1)

School Library Journal

Gr 7 Up- In this concluding novel in the trilogy, the Realm of Faerie is being devastated by the Sorcerer King of Lyonesse and his Gray Knights. The power of the Sun King and Moon Queen seems broken. Hope is rekindled as Princess Tania returns again to the Realm accompanied by her mother, Queen Titania; her sisters; and Master Edric Chanticleer. They soon realize that the only way to save the kingdom is to rescue King Oberon and unite the faeries to do battle. A quest ensues involving all the creatures of faerie in a life-or-death struggle that may mean the end of the world as they know it. This epic tale of battle and death contains many twists and surprises that will keep readers on the edge of their seats.-June H. Keuhn, Corning East High School, NY

Kirkus Reviews

In this third installment of The Faerie Path series, modern London teen Anita has come to terms with the fact that she is really Tania, seventh daughter of King Oberon and Queen Titania, able to bridge the mortal world and that of the magical Faerie. In earlier installments, she barely escaped a fatal marriage to the evil Lord Drake and found her true mother, lost in the mortal realm for 500 years. Returning to Faerie with her mother and sisters, she learns that the evil Sorcerer King and his dread Grey Knights have imprisoned her father Oberon. In a headlong rush across this mystical world, pursued by her old enemy Drake, finding both friend and foe in Faerie's many inhabitants, Tania, her sisters and her true love Edric search for Oberon's prison. The race is on to find the means to release him in time to save them all from the destruction the Sorcerer King is so keen to inflict. This final installment in the trilogy continues to take our heroine from one unlikely set of circumstances to another, combining contemporary viewpoints with the more magical world of another time and sphere. Those who liked the first two books will find the conclusion satisfying; those who haven't read the previous books will miss the foundation, despite the prologue. (Fantasy. 12+)

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Chapter One

Tania stared through the arched stone window at the vast blue skies of Faerie. She could hardly believe that her sisters; her mother, Titania; and her beloved Edric were alive, and that they had all managed to get back into the Immortal Realm. They were safe for the moment in the upper room of Bonwn Tyr—the brown tower that stood in the parklands between the deep, dense vastness of Esgarth Forest and the expanse of the Royal Palace.

Her joy at their miraculous escape did not last long—she saw immediately that something was badly wrong in Faerie.

Zara stood at her side. "Some great evil has befallen the land," she said. "High summer should lie over Faerie. It is not yet the Solstice Day, and yet the trees are withering as if in the grip of a premature autumn."

Tania had been in Faerie only a few days ago, and then the slender aspen trees surrounding the tower had been in full leaf and the grass had grown thick and lush on the hill that sloped down to the palace. But now the aspens were dying and the ground was brown and yellow, the grasses shriveled as if from a whole season of drought. Farther away, the leaves of the forest were shrouded in dark, autumnal colors.

"What did this?" Tania asked in dismay.

"It is the influence of the Sorcerer King," said Queen Titania, coming up behind her. "Sickness and death follow wherever he treads. Let us hope that the whole Realm is not so badly affected." The Queen's eyes glinted. "But while the Royal House of Faerie survives, Faerie will never be completely ruined."

Tania leaned from thewindow, peering through the bleak branches. Her heart quickened. "There are some Gray Knights down there!" she hissed in alarm. "Two of them. In the trees."

Edric caught hold of her arm and drew her back. "Don't let them see you," he said.

"Why should we not?" declared Cordelia. "It is time to take the battle to the Sorcerer King. Let us destroy the evil creatures and be done with it."

"I'm not sure it's such a good idea to pick a fight right now," Tania said. "They don't know we're in Faerie. We should try and keep it that way for as long as possible."

"Tania is right," said the Queen. "We'll make our way to the palace without being seen. If the Sorcerer King's forces are alerted to our presence, it will make our search for Oberon all the more difficult." She looked at her daughters. "But we should take a few moments to assess our injuries." She frowned. "Cordelia, your arm is bleeding."

"We have no time for licking our wounds!" Cordelia exclaimed.

"Yet it would avail us nothing were you to faint from blood loss," said Sancha. She stooped and tore a strip off the hem of her skirt. Reluctantly, Cordelia allowed her sister to bind the cut on her left arm.

"And now let us be gone from here," said Zara. "But there is only one way out of the tower. How are we to pass the guards unseen?"

"By giving them some other quarry to chase," said Cordelia. "Come, I will show you how we may escape." She walked to the winding stone stairway that led down to the ground floor and up to the flat roof. She stared upward for a moment, then looked uneasily back at them. "We must prepare ourselves for the worst," she said. "It may be that we will find Eden's body on the roof."

A terrible, horror-struck silence filled the tower at that dreadful thought. Titania put her hand over her mouth, her eyes hollow with anguish.

Eden had led Zara and Sancha and Cordelia here and had opened a hole between the worlds—but she had not followed them into the Mortal World. It seemed all too possible to Tania that the Gray Knights that had been pursuing them had killed her.

"If she is dead, then we must bear the pain of it," Sancha said, her voice trembling. "But let us pray it is not so."

Cordelia began to mount the stone steps. Titania followed, and Tania could see the dread in the Queen's eyes as she climbed toward the hatchway in the roof. Tania and Edric came next, and finally Sancha and Zara. The trapdoor had been forced open and smashed—damage that Tania guessed had been done when Eden and her sisters had fled here with the Gray Knights on their heels.

Tania's heart thumped sickeningly and a horrible pain grew in her stomach as she approached the broken trapdoor. But when her head came out into the open, she saw that the flat stone flags of the roof were bare, save for a ring of blackened markings like fire scorches on the stones.

"Eden did not die here," Cordelia said.

They all came up onto the roof. "Was she captured, mayhap?" Sancha asked. "Could it be she is their prisoner?"

"She may have escaped them altogether," Zara said. "She is very powerful."

Edric touched Tania's arm. She turned to him and saw that he was staring southward with an appalled look on his face. Titania had moved to the southern side of the waist-high stone balustrade, her body stiff and tense, her hands tightened into white fists at her sides as she gazed at the Royal Palace.

Tania let out a gasp of shock. A scene of utter devastation met her eyes. The Privy Gardens that lay between the parklands and the palace had been laid waste. It was as if some hideous disease had passed over the flower beds and lovingly tended groves of trees, leaving only bare bones and blasted earth. The fountains were dry and many of the statues that decorated the pathways had been broken or knocked down.

Beyond the blistered gardens, a haze of dirty gray smoke hung over the palace. Here and there from blackened windows and collapsed roofs, spirals of darker smoke curled into the sky. The palace was vast, and Tania could see that much of it was still undamaged—the high red-brick walls of countless towers and turrets and buildings and halls still standing proud along the river's winding course—but the Royal Apartments, the parts of the palace that Tania knew best, had been seared and scarred by fire.