January 2011 Book of the Month.

Wonderful storytelling is the hallmark of all William Horwood's novels.  Here in the first of four, William has returned to his fantasy routes in this epic series that follows the flow of the seasons. The Hydden are little people with big beliefs who live on the borders of the human world and one of them, Jack is sent to live amongst humans in order to try and find a long lost object that is so dear to them but can he and his loved one that he meets in the human world find their true destiny and complete the quest he was set to do and save both worlds?  This journey begins in Spring and will continue in Summer and Autumn before culminating in Winter.

Comparison: Guy Gavriel Kay, Stephen Lawhead, David Gemmell
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Synopsis

The adventure of a lifetime is just beginning ...It has lain lost and forgotten for fifteen hundred years in the ancient heartland of England - a scrap of glass and metal melded by fierce fire. It is the lost core of a flawless Sphere made by the greatest of the Anglo-Saxon CraeftLords in memory of the one he loved. Her name was Spring and contained in the very heart of this work is a spark from the Fires of Creation. But while humans have lost their belief in such things, the Hydden - little people existing on the borders of our world - have not. Breaking the silence of centuries they send one of their own, a young boy, Jack, to live among humans in the hope that he may one day find what has been lost for so long. His journey leads him to Katherine, a girl he rescues from a tragic accident - it's a meeting that will change everything.

About the Author

William Horwood was born in Oxford in 1944, the illegitimate last child of five. He was a feature editor with the Daily Mail until 1978 when he began work on the first of his now classic Duncton Chronicles series which became instant international bestsellers. Despite their enormous success, and that of his later novels, Horwood has written that he would gladly have exchanged them all to have known the identity of his father and ‘held his hand, if only for a moment’. William has been married three times, has six children and now lives in Oxford, just a few hundred yards from where he was born. More books by this author Author 'Like for Like' recommendation