The Realms Thereunder

by Ross Lawhead

Overview

Ancient legend tells of an army of knights that will remain sleeping until the last days.

The knights are waking up.

A homeless man is stalked by a pale, wraithlike creature with a mouthful of needle-sharp teeth. Maimed animals and a host of suicides cluster around a mountain in Scotland. And deep beneath the cobbled streets of Oxford, a malicious hoard besieges a hidden city.

Freya Reynolds is a university student with a touch of OCD and an obsession with myth and folklore. Daniel Tully is living rough on the streets of Oxford, waging a secret war against an enemy only he can identify. Years ago, they found themselves in a world few know is real. They have since gone their separate ways and tried to put that adventure behind them.

But the mythical world is now bleeding into our reality—a dark spiritual evil that is manifesting itself in forgotten corners of the British Isles. Alex Simpson is a Scottish police officer who specializes in hunting mythical creatures. Together, they must confront the past, the present, and points beyond to defeat the ultimate threat to humanity.

Nothing they've seen so far prepares them for what awaits . . . in The Realms Thereunder.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781595549099
Publisher:	Nelson, Thomas, Inc.
Publication date:	09/05/2011
Series:	An Ancient Earth , #1
Pages:	384
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.30(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Ross Lawhead comes from a literary household. He has collaborated with his father, Stephen R. Lawhead, on a trilogy of speculative fiction, written and illustrated a graphic novel, and published two volumes of “awful” poetry in a series called “The Colour Papers.” He lives in Oxford, England and this is his first full-length novel. For more of Ross’s musings on comics, movies, books, and culture, visit rosslawhead.com/blog/

Editorial Reviews

This ambitious debut somewhat jerkily weaves three major narratives into a Tolkienesque saga, maintaining that destroying Evil isn't enough: humans have to actively build Good. At age 13, protagonists Daniel Tully and Freya Reynolds disappeared into a secret tunnel beneath an English church, awakened two sleeping Anglo-Saxon warriors, and carried out a coming-of-age sortie against horrid orcish yfelgópes before returning to the surface. Eight years later, Freya, an Oxford student, and Daniel, a homeless wanderer, plunge back into a renewed crusade in Nidergeard, the subterranean realm housing the whole range of supernatural British folklore beasties. Fitfully impressive passages can't mitigate the ennui of interminable tunnel and sewer crawls, and Lawhead's predictable message is often obscured by things that go bump in a near-endless night. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

With beautiful imagery, thoughtful imagination, and a touch of humor, The Realms Thereunder is an excellent beginning to an insightful and exciting new fantasy series.

TheChristianManifesto.com Melissa Willis

[A] fantastically compelling novel mixing the best of fantasy, adventure, and intrigue.”
—C.J. Darlington, TitleTrakk.com; author of Bound by Guilt
 


"Ross Lawhead's debut novel is a post-Narnia epic, with young protagonists traveling to an alternate universe that mimics our own. In their youth, Daniel and Freya encounter monsters and heroes; in the present, Daniel still fights while Freya tries to concentrate on her studies. Set in England, the story has many characters who have a wide range of accents, and Gary Dikeos slips easily from British to Scots to American ones for the narration. He has four voices for the two leads—one young and one adult for each—and they are distinctive enough to make the random changes in timeframe easier to follow. Dikeos's enthusiasm allows each new character to stand alone, and his reading of Swidgar the Knight is suitably bombastic for the parallel pseudo-medieval world." 
A.Z.W. © AudioFile Portland, Maine

From the Publisher

Ross Lawhead's debut novel is a post-Narnia epic, with young protagonists traveling to an alternate universe that mimics our own. In their youth, Daniel and Freya encounter monsters and heroes; in the present, Daniel still fights while Freya tries to concentrate on her studies. Set in England, the story has many characters who have a wide range of accents, and Gary Dikeos slips easily from British to Scots to American ones for the narration. He has four voices for the two leads—one young and one adult for each—and they are distinctive enough to make the random changes in timeframe easier to follow. Dikeos's enthusiasm allows each new character to stand alone, and his reading of Swidgar the Knight is suitably bombastic for the parallel pseudo-medieval world. A.Z.W. © AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine

NOVEMBER 2011 - AudioFile