The princess vanishes after her betrothed arrives for their marriage and everyone thinks she has been abducted when in reality she is fleeing for her life. Her only hope is Mykkael, the foreigner captain in command of the Lowergate garrison, but to some he is also the prime suspect - mainly based on his foreignness.

A pageturner, even if the prose sometimes gets a bit dense, seamlessly intertwining discussions of racism, honour and ethics with good worldbuilding and strong characterisation.

I think it sad that such a good work is soiled by second rate craftsmanship when it comes to the book's binding and production - usually I love looking at the maps that accompanies a book in the high fantasy genre but this time someone has sent low resolution placeholders to final print. The result is blurred, pixelated, artwork. A disgrace.

Anyone holding the book thinking of buy/not buy should look further than that - the tale is a good one, well worth the time it takes reading it. ( )

Wow! Janny told me the story got really exciting during the last half. Wrong! It was really exciting all the way through. If there is any fault at all in the book, it is that the excitement NEVER slacks off & it's really hard to put down. That's not really fair when it is so long - yet seems not long enough. I'd love to read more about this world & its characters.

The plot is beautifully crafted, lovingly revealed & the resolution left me gasping (& a bit teary eyed). The characters are amazingly human, yet heroic, each in their own way. The prose is a bit dense at times. Each word was obviously chosen with professional care, so be warned if you like to quickly skim a novel - don't do it. You might get away with it with this one, but you don't want to. The description is too acute, the world perfectly formed & a quick read will simply dim it.

My highest praise is reserved for her handling of the horses. Obviously, she KNOWS horses. She knows their strengths, weaknesses & personalities. Yes, each horse has a personality. They're not simply hooved cars. They're not cutsey, caricatures, either. There is no anthropomorphism here. They're every bit as 'real' as the fictionalized humans. If you don't know horses, there may be a few terms that could use some definition, but not many. Most are well enough described. The 'near' side of a horse is the left side, for instance. It is a proper equestrian term.

Anyway, it's a fantastic read & I highly recommend it. I've yet to be disappointed by one of her books & this one just raised my esteem for her writing another notch. ( )

A missing princess and a handful of strange deaths bring together two men, a mysterious foreigner and a rigidly focused captain of the royal guard. Caught in a vise of politics and diabolical plotting, the two men must decide whether to trust enough to stand together and face a nameless horror. Should either falter, more than a kingdom will fall.

Wurts has outdone herself. Gut-wrenching and powerful, this stand-alone novel drags the reader along on a desperate plunge to outrace the minions of hell itself. ( )

To Ride Hell's Chasm is a stand-alone fantasy novel. Overall I enjoyed the story line and feel most of the timing was at a good pace. For me the biggest negative for the book were all the interactions and conversations taking place between Mykkael and most everyone else.

I can only say that many of the reactions of people on both sides of conversations were not in any way how I would expect the comments to be taken. I can only assume that there was a level of subtlety beyond my understanding. Also many seem to be smart people who keep making the same mistakes that they should have already learned to avoid.

I really enjoyed Wurts work with Feist and I plan on reading another one of her books in the future, but there were to many problems with character interactions that I couldn't accept, to truly make this a great book. ( )

To Ride Hell's Chasm is an epic tale with many elements of classic fantasy - evil sorcerers, a strong sworded warrior, and a princess in peril. What would seem cliche however is woven into a fresh and exciting story under the expert pen of Janny Wurts. Her sorcerers wield demonic power instead of magic wands; the warrior is a foreigner mistrusted and suspected of evil; and the princess is a strong willed fighter and horsewoman.

At first I was intimidated by the expanse of To Ride Hell's Chasm. However, Wurts artfully handles a magnificent world and paints a rich setting for readers. Her characters are complex and multi-faceted and while reading the book I got the sense of making new friends - at first I wasn't sure about some but as more dimensions of their personalities were revealed, they grew on me and I was almost sad to part with them at the end. One of the very unique features of this book was Wurts's use of horses - that sometimes stole the spotlight from their human companions. The descriptions were so well written that I could almost hear them galloping in my head.

As noted in other reviews, some of the exposition in the beginning of the book slowed the pace slightly but for me, all the details served to solidify the characters in my mind. Especially on reflection, I think the characters were more realistic for having back stories and their early interactions revealed a lot of dimension to them. Also, once the action really took off it was a thrilling journey that concluded as brilliantly as it began. ( )