First Truth

I am a big fan of Kim Harrison, she is one of my top 5 authors. I had to try her Dawn Cook books, I found it very enjoyable. It is an easy to read, fantasy. The two main characters are from opposite sides of the track in this world. Alissa is stubborn, powerful with latent magic and naive. Strell is humorous, musical and stubborn. Both distrust each other, and think less of the other because of where they are from. They are forced to combine their journeys after events tear their families apart.There is some repetition I found grating on my nerves at times, but the story moves quickly. The relationship that grows is believable and follows a natural course for the time period.
I enjoyed the story, I could believe in the characters and show more their relationships, the world created and it's magic was new and exciting. I have already ordered the next book in the series. show less

This epic fantasy/coming of age novel follows the adventure of Alissa and Strell. Alissa is the daughter of a Keeper but her father has been missing for years. She is also a half-breed. She's not accepted by the local villagers. When her mother determines that she has inherited her father's magic, she insists that Alissa travel to the Hold for training.

Along the way she meets Strell who is a Plainsman who has been sent away from his family to work as a bard. He has just learned that his whole family was lost in a flood and is wondering what to do with the rest of his life. He was given a map by Alissa's mother in a trade. Alissa wants that map since she knows it was made by her father and she is able to read it.

The two team up to find show more their way to the Hold before winter overtakes them. There they learn that the sole inhabitant is Bailic who has killed or imprisoned the rest of the Keepers and has been searching for a magical book for many years. Alissa's father had the book but hid it before entering the Hold and being murdered by Bailic. Now Alissa wants to find his book at least as much a Bailic wants it.

This was an entertaining story with lots of magic and adventure. I liked the growing relationship between Strell and Alissa. I liked the worldbuilding. My only complaint is that this is the first of four books and thus leaves all sorts of plot threads hanging. show less

{First of 4: Truth series. Fantasy, YA} (2002)

I picked this up as an indirect book bullet from a recommendation for a different Dawn Cook series (who also writes as Kim Harrison) - [Decoy Princess].

The farmers of the foothills and the craftspeople of the plains disdain each other and only trade with each other through necessity. Alissa, who is a halfbreed of both plains and foothills and thus shunned by both, is reluctantly sent on a quest by her mother to follow in her missing father’s footsteps.

Strell comes from a family of famous potters where every other family member has joined the family trade but he has inexplicably been sent out into the world to find his way as a minstrel.

The two cross paths and, in a world where everyone show more believes there is no magic, find their way to the mysterious, isolated Hold in the mountains which everyone thought existed only in stories. There an unknown danger awaits, but they are trapped there as winter sets in. Despite their initial xenophobia they learn to be loyal to each other.

I thought this was an interesting story. Although I noticed that it takes the travellers a while to get to the Hold I realised that the time is necessary to build the story and the relationship between the two protagonists.

I felt that there were some issues with the writing - this does seem to be her first book (in either incarnation) - and there were some issues also with ‘printing’ in this e-book such as duplicated sentences but I’m happy to borrow more in the series.

3.5 stars show less

Like a number of other recent reviewers, I recently found out that Kim Harrison and Dawn Cook are one and the same, and decided I'd take a gander at this early fantasy series of hers. No, it's not the Hollows - it's not as expansive, as complex, or as exciting as the Hollows books are. To be frank, it's not great. But it's not bad, either, and it's kind of fascinating to see the germ of Kim Harrison's talent here - in flashes, to be sure.

First Truth is a small book, and it's even smaller than it could have been. The setting is pretty localized - there's the desert plains, the foothills farmers, the coast, and the mountains in between. Each of these areas has a distinct culture, and they're locked in a state of mutual animosity. The show more book mostly follows its two main characters, Alyssa and Strell, as they attempt a dangerous mountain crossing in the autumn, when the weather can prove deadly. Thrown together by necessity, they're soon trapped in The Hold - a massive mountain fortress, inhabited by one evil maniac and one imprisoned ally - by the season's first snows.

So here's the deal: Alyssa can sense the presence of a magical book. The evil maniac, Bailic, wants the book so he can use it for the usual evil maniac purpose, i.e. he wants to try to take over the world, but he can't sense it. He's pretty sure either Alyssa or Strell could sense the book, but he needs to figure out which one. Alyssa and Strell are powerless against Bailic, but trapped in a magically sealed dungeon of The Hold is Useless, a powerful creature who, if freed, could murder Bailic in the blink of an eye.

So you've got three people who are *supposedly* really highly motivated to accomplish something. Alyssa is driven by a magical compulsion to find the book...except that mostly she cooks and sews and doesn't go looking. Bailic is all fired up about forcing his guests to find the book, and but he appears to be both stupid and lazy - he thinks of one lame plot every couple of weeks, always ridiculously easy to foil, and in between he just wanders around acting creepy. Useless is pretty darn motivated to escape his prison, and his behavior is the oddest of all. He's got two mobile allies in The Hold, and he can actually communicate with them telepathically, but instead of enlisting their help, or making use of Alyssa's powerful magical gifts...he tells them to go away, seals Alyssa's magic against her own use, rendering her extra defenseless against Bailic, and announces his desire to just...wait around in prison until Bailic dies.

So they all arrive at the hold and basically loaf around doing nothing for months. And then, when they finally decide to take some action, it's so ridiculously simple to achieve the goals they've been putting off that I was kind of angry. If any of the above characters had put even a tiny amount of effort into achieving their goals a little earlier, the book would have been about 1/4 as long as it turned out to be.

So, to sum up, I actually quite liked this book at the start - but during the months of dawdling around in The Hold it totally lost me. Still, it was kind of fun to see baby Kim Harrison in action. show less

My take on the book:

It was good! A very different pace than my normal books but that was fine :) The plot is great and compelling and it has magic and dragon-like creatures... who doesn't love that hmm?

World-building was great, no matter where we were in the world, everything was described with an eye for detail, but not too much, which made it easy to just flow with the story and not be annoyed.

Character development was excellent! We see both Strell and Alissa grow (a lot actually) during their journey to the Hold and during their trials and tribulations at the Hold itself, growing up and growing closer to each other (which was so cute and had me face palming a couple of times... cute!).
We get a lot of insight into their reasoning, show more what their history is and why they are on this journey. Even when we look at our villain, the evil Keeper Bailic, do we get a lot of information, though at this moment, I'm still wondering about the big 'why'.

Pacing and flow were decent. Mind you, in my opinion, it is a very slow paced story with only the last few chapters that have a faster flow while working to the end of book 1.

The book in itself is well written, with no (noticeable) errors. There is also no sex in this book (if that is important to you).

All in all, a good start to a promising series, though perhaps for me a tad too slow and uneventful. However, I will surely be reading part 2 sometime soon (when I have a lot of spare time on my hands). show less

Alissa, a shunned girl, travels to a distant Hold to train in magic. Joined by a wandering minstrel named Strell, Alissa faces dangerous, premature winter, and a corrupt Keeper seeking ultimate power through forbidden knowledge.

Alissa is headstrong and practical, accompanied by her kestrel companion, Talon. She meets Strell, a cheerful, often annoying minstrel who holds a crucial map. A wicked Keeper named Bailic has murdered Keepers and sent the magical Masters away, aiming to find the First Truth book. She and the minstrel must reach the nearly abandoned Hold before the winter snows, only to walk into a trap set by Bailic, who believes they know the secret to the magical text he desires.

Alissa doesn't believe in magic. Even though her father has filled her head with stories of the Hold and Keepers, she was convinced that they were only stories. But when Alissa's mother throws her out of the home to find her destiny, Alissa finds that stories can be real. As Alissa journeys through the foothills and plains, she meets up with Strell, who helps her find the truth.

I was so disappointed in this series. As a big fan of Kim Harrison's Rachel Morgan series, I thought her debut YA fantasy novel as Dawn Cook would be just as fun -but it seemed like this was written by a completely different person. I was looking for an exciting, action-packed YA fantasy novel filled with magic. I didn't even mind if it followed a very show more traditional story structure -I just wanted something fun in the vein of Percy Jackson and the Olympians or something of that nature. First Truth wasn't like that at all -while the world was interesting, the characters were incredibly flat and impossible to relate to. Not only that, but it felt like it too far too long for the plot to start moving and when it did, it didn't seem to go much of anywhere until the very end.

While at times charming, First Truth just doesn't deliver. The plot was slow-paced and the action felt nearly non-existent. The world was fascinating and fun, but was populated by uninteresting characters and a bland protagonist. I really wanted to like this book -I wanted it to take me back to my childhood and be so fun that I just went along for the ride -despite the fact that the plot isn't incredibly original. This book actually spawned three sequels, and I'm afraid that I wasn't interested enough to continue. show less