Book Reviews

Book Blurb

Iulian Dalca is a twenty-one-year-old musical prodigy with big dreams. He's also blessed with a hint of light magic in his blood, a gift that's apparently unique to prodigies and whose purpose appears to be the developing of an extremely strong connection between artist and audience during a performance. Unknown to most, the gift of light magic also allows him a powerful and inexplicable psychic link to someone who remains invisible, a person he's never met in the real world. It's a connection that strengthens over time, a symbiotic bond whose purpose remains a closely guarded secret among the goddesses believed to have created it. 

Cosmin Vasile is an eighteen-year-old young man living in obscurity and poverty in a rural village in the Wallachian countryside. Gifted in song, he spends his time adding to his parents' meager income by weaving and gathering wool for sale, singing rustic songs he knows by heart as he works. He's also plagued by mysteriously restless sleep lasting a week and occurring once a year since he turned eleven, though he remembers nothing of the dreams or nightmares that may have caused the disturbance. 

Then out of the blue on two separate occasions, a once-in-a-lifetime chance at fulfilling their dearest dreams suddenly comes along, and youthful hope takes flight...

Only to tumble headlong down a nightmarish pit of old magic twisted for a darker purpose, where lines separating reality and decades-long madness blur. Haunting portraits of long gone students, a cursed mirror hiding a terrifying world of corruption and death, a monstrous satyr lurking in the shadows of the mirror's world - time and hope for escape disappear as Iulian and Cosmin suddenly discover the awful price of being marked as the Muses' rare, favored children.

Book Review

“She looked fragile. Alone. Prisoner in the room through the mirror, an Alice who never made it back through the looking glass.” ~ Joss Stirling

Iulian Dalca, from 'Children of Hyacinth', can't believe his luck when he's allowed to study with a great music master. For a year, he follows a strict discipline and, with the help of a little light magic, becomes an extremely accomplished violinist. The day after his premier recital, he's on the top of the world, wondering where he will go from here. He can't believe how much he's accomplished in just a year. The old saying, “If it seems to be too good to be true, it probably is” fits Iulian's situation to a tee when he is dragged through a mirror from one world to another; Iulian goes from star student to captive in a dark, dangerous scheme for power and immortality.

Cosmin Vasile is a young man blessed with the gift of song. He has no illusions that he will be any more than what he's always been: a poor but happy person with a loving family and just enough to get by. When a stranger appears one day and offers his parents money to be able to take Cosmin away and give him voice lessons that will enhance his natural voice, they are overwhelmed and happy that Cosmin will have an opportunity for a better life. Cosmin is puzzled and a bit overwhelmed by the attention of his new maestro, but also strangely attracted to him sexually. Cosmin doesn't practice magic, but he does know something about it from a practitioner in his village and can recognize it from the traces it leaves behind. Cosmin is living in a huge old house with many rooms but the one he's attracted to most is the one with huge portraits of his teacher's past students. Cosmin is particularly attracted to one portrait, that of the student before him, who he learns from the cook is Iulian Dalca. When he sees movement in the picture, at first it frightens him, but very soon, he realizes that Iulian is somehow communicating with him and is, indeed, trapped in the portrait.

Iulian and Cosmin discover that they have a psychic connection and have “spoken” before, but it only works when Iulian is playing his violin and can communicate with Cosmin in his dreams. Cosmin is determined to find a way for him and Iulian to escape but it must be done as covertly as possible. Their master is no normal music teacher and it soon becomes clear that he is not going to give up something he's wanted for a long time without a fight.

This is gothic horror at its best as Hayden creates frightening, spooky situations that are almost more than my mind could comprehend. Iulian and Cosmin are beautiful young men who fight against an insane, twisted man in search of immortality. It's a classic battle of good versus evil, pure versus corrupted, earth magic versus black magic. The tale is intense, angsty, frightening, and deliciously evil at times. Through all this shine Iulian and Cosmin's virtue and goodness, giving them their happy ending. Thank you, Hayden, for such a complex, well-written story that had me guessing the whole time.

 

 

 

 

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Additional Information

Format	ebook and print
Length	Novel, 242 pages
Heat Level
Publication Date	20-March-2017
Price	$2.99 ebook, $9.00 paperback
Buy Link	https://www.amazon.com/Children-Hyacinth-Hayden-Thorne-ebook/dp/B06XJ3QVFD