It is a land without colour, a monochrome world leached of the very thing we all take for granted: Colour. A warrior woman searches for work in the sprawling city of Tronaelend-Lis but becomes allied to a dark mysterious man escorting his cousin and aunt to an arranged marriage.

A City in a kind of turmoil for nearly three hundred years. Its King suspended in a kind of stasis, displayed for all to see like a children’s legend yet there he rests. Two Regents oversee the City and control the day-to-day goings-on, however this brother-sister regency is a farce.

The City is really ruled by two factions, the Light Guild that creates great orbs of single colour and the Assassin's Guild of the Bilhaar, so secretive that it seems non-existent except for the killings and dark forms of its patrons.

All is not well in Tronaelend-Lis, it has become the source of interest to strangers of dark complexion from outside its range of power and that very power has become threatened by the lack of real collective authority. In this suffocating darkness of foreign origin, a miracle is needed to overcome a tyranny and the lives of all that live in Tronaelend-Lis will never be the same again.

There is nothing I can say about this book that is negative. Don't let the front cover put you off, it isn't a biblical piece hiding behind a fantasy label. I found myself aching to read the book again after I had finished it. The style is new and fresh in the fantasy genre, it breaks fundamental rules with wild abandon and carries it off superbly. You have a constant feeling that Tronaelend-Lis really does exist in the mind of Vera Nazarian as she wrote this book, it is imaginative and spellbinding.

Nazarian has a delightful array of characters that form the basis for the beginning of the book. Characters that range from the complex and unreadable to the seemingly shallow and of dirty mind. We actually meet so many of these characters that you almost lose track of them but what this actually does is give the reader an almost instant life amongst the dwellers in Nazarian's story. It is as if you have dropped off the page into the folds of the text that she has woven.

The book has an eroticism throughout, it expands on the lives of some of the characters and helps make them feel more real to the reader. At times, this type of writing becomes intoxicating but overall, it is a reflection of the characters' souls and desires that adds to their integrity.

I loved the character of Ranhe, she is the kind of heroine that you can accept and identify with. She is human and she makes mistakes but these only serve to expand her. As a Freewoman she is a warrior, hiding knives upon her person and her inner most thoughts from the world. She is bold and brassy at times when you might imagine she need not be.

Why on earth isn't this book available to a wider audience? To get this you will have to put in some effort, whether you are in the UK or across the Atlantic, it is a print-on-demand title. The fact and blatant lunacy is that it shouldn't be. This book is classy. It has a unique but somehow olde world feel to it without stifling the story, and the story is really quite exquisite.

The story is that of good and evil, the battle that faces humanity in any and every form imaginable. However, it goes far deeper than that exploring the idea that our very personality is the same such battle. The concept of ‘Lords Of Rainbow’ could have been overdone thus making for a clever concept without the guts of follow-through.

This isn't the case, Nazarian balances perfectly a blend of beautiful backgrounds in the form of landscapes and character development, magic and classical writing making for an immensely enjoyable read. This book I have to admit was savoured while I read it, it will be one of my favourites for the rest of my life I am sure.

Donna Jones