Sometimes I find a good book, relax and read it. Enter the writer’s creative mind, so to speak. But on a rare occasion I find a greater book that instead seems to read me. Such was the case with Zinnia Hope’s newest novel, Thorn of Ebon. The charisma of this book is that it seemed to magically make me look into myself.

Thorn of Ebon is Book I in a dramatic series which actually uses a prior novel, Honeysuckle and Wild Roses, as a fulcrum.  Thorn of Ebon centers around Princess Loilati, the chosen one of The Daughters of Trinity. This young woman is endowed with a fearless spirit, and as such she is the chosen warrior to go on a quest to battle an army whose secret weapon sets whole villages aflame. Accompanied by a handful of select delegates from the lands of the Fae, Elves, Dwarves and Mortals, she proceeds into the dark and unknown forests to confront the mysterious army that would threaten her home.  

Princess Loilati proceeds to confront more than just one battle as the story develops. Being a half-breed between both Mortal and Fae races, she continually fights internal dissonance and must grow into a reaffirmation of her own identity. Although coerced into accepting her role as the Chosen One, she struggles to understand who chose her and why. The story is rich with Norse mythology, and as such tickled me with the complications of the girl being caught between Gods and Goddesses at enmity with each other. Not the least of this young woman’s perils is her own primed sexuality that can at any time prove to be a weakness or strength when in the proximity of males.

Ultimately in charge of her own decisions, her own destiny and her own sexual choices, the princess advances with defiant courage despite how everyone beside her tends to either turn and run in fear, or turn out to be her potential assassin.

What I especially want to mention about my enjoyment with Thorn of Ebon is the descriptive words. Take a look at how Zinnia describes this scene where Princess Loilati accepts her aunt’s invitation to a bath: “She nodded and made her way down the steep incline. A creek snaked through a grove of trees and spewed from a jumble of rocks. The water fell down into a small pool. Loilati navigated the last few mossy rocks and stood on a thick sandbar. Water lapped against it, and the aroma of fresh water permeated the air. Birds twittered in the surrounding foliage, and, high above the pool, a white-and-blue butterfly duo performed zigzags and dips. Kneeling, she cupped her hands and sampled the water. Cold and refreshing, the liquid soothed her parched throat. She splashed some on her face and gasped.”

Each scene led my mind astray into my own realm of wanderings. I had to continually pull myself away from reading the story because of the fresh images still lingering in my mind wanting to play themselves out again and again. And then, similar to a case of dipsomania when one glass of wine just whets your thirst for a second, I raced back to the book to satisfy that persistent desire for even more.

Thorn of Ebon is a book that I whole-heartedly enjoyed, completely recommend to adult readers, and anxiously await the next volume in the series. Till then, now that I am done reviewing it and blogging it, I will go back and read it again just for the thrill of letting the stallion of my own imagination charge uninhibited into the fertile valley.