The beautiful maiden Jewel is the center of her parent's joy. She is the embodiment of their true love and she has grown up surrounded by peace and love in abundance.
Jewel's world cruelly shatters when her parents are suddenly killed and she and her uncle Eoin are forced to flee. Leaving the only home she has ever known, Jewel learns that her parents, caught in a tangle of a tragic prophecy, had hidden in the marshland for years to protect the secret knowledge that Jewel is the last of the line of the Janus Jaravhor, the dreaded sorcerer of Strang. That she might be the one person in the world who could unlock the mysterious Dome that is told to hold all of Janus's secrets. And, that King Maolmordha now knows of her existence and will stop at nothing to find her.
Pain and loss follow and Jewel must make her way alone. Rescued by a traveling band of Weathermasters, exalted magicians who control the heavens for the rich and powerful, she is taken to High Darioneth and is accepted into this tightly knit community. Not just accepted, but loved, for one of the young weathermasters beheld her and his heart was lost.
Jewel is left with the promise of true love and a powerful secret. But, which path will she choose-and who will suffer if she makes the wrong choice?
"With influences ranging from Celtic and Norse folk tales to Shakespearean tragedy, Dart-Thornton has crafted an impressive start to an epic journey down the corridors of myth and legend....readers looking for an intense and old-fashioned magical world will eagerly anticipate the next step in the journey."
Romantic Times BookClub Magazine on The Iron Tree, Book One in The Crowthistle Chronicles
"...Dart-Thornton conjures up her world of Tir and its rituals and beliefs in the luminous yet hard-edged manner of Jack Vance or Mary Gentle."
The Washington Post on The Iron Tree, Book One in The Crowthistle Chronicles
"The world of Tir is an intriguing place, so filled with spooks and apparitions that it is hard to believe any land is left for mere humans to live on....Cecilia Dart-Thornton has created a uniquely beautiful world in The Iron Tree…."
Sci-Fi.com on The Iron Tree, Book One in The Crowthistle Chronicles
