“Strell!” she shrieked, flinging herself at him. His eyes flew open. They met in a crushing embrace. She was picked up, swung about in a dizzying swirl, and plunked down hard enough to rattle her teeth. She didn’t care. Her head was buried in his shoulder, arms about his neck, exulting in the smell of hot sand that clung to him.
“I tried and tried to get back,” she heard herself stutter into his shirt. It was damp. One of them was crying. “Redal-Stan said I couldn’t, but I knew I could,” she babbled. “And then I heard your music, and—”
“Oh, do shut up,” Strell said, and before she knew his intent, he kissed her.
****
Every once in a while I am compelled to post fanart from my favorite obscure series just to see if there’s anyone out there besides me who loves Dawn Cook’s Truth Series.
First Truth by Dawn Cook, German translation by Katharina Volk
Finished: 25th February, 2025
Genre: Fantasy
May be for you if you like: Intricate magic systems, unlikely duos, Hero's Journey
Synopsis
Her father's stories about the Hold, a legendary fortress where human Keepers learn magic from the enigmatic Masters, are just that―stories. But her mother insists that Alissa has inherited her father's magical ability, and so she must go to the Hold―the only place her talents can be trained.
Overall Rating: 🧁🧁🧁🧁
Idea: 🧁🧁🧁🧁
Plot: 🧁🧁🧁
Characters: 🧁🧁🧁🧁🧁
Worldbuilding: 🧁🧁🧁
Narration: 🧁🧁🧁🧁🧁
Entertainment: 🧁🧁🧁🧁
Full Review
The German cover, because that's the version I've read, and the English version is genuinely ugly.
My best friend has recommended this series for ages, and since I usually trust her judgement, I figured I'd give it a go. Sooo let's get into it, shall we?
The story is honestly best summarized as "barely existent", which sounds a lot worse than it is, so hear me out. It's the first book of a quatrology, so almost the entire book is spent on introducing the lore and characters. It's done in such a way that the reader knows just enough to keep up with what's going on, but little enough to want to learn more in future books. It's actually quite clever and, at least for me, very effective as I'll definitely read the second book rather soon.
The story we do have is basically divided into two sections:
Alissa and Strell's journey to the Hold, and their stay at the Hold. The former is mostly used to introduce both protagonists and their respective backstories, the latter is mostly used to give some lore about the magic system and to characterize the Big Bad Bailic (TM). There's not much that's actually happening besides Alissa and Strell fighting with each other and them cooking for Bailic, so like. Yeah. Towards the ending, the pacing was a little off. The resolution to the two main conflicts felt super hamfisted and rushed, and it dampened my positive experience a little bit. Overall it's a rather slow book, action wise, but it wasn't off-putting by any means. Good things are worth the wait and allat, so I hope the second book will be more plot-heavy, as the rushed nature of the ending seemed to indicate.
The characters are well-developed and definitely the biggest selling-point of the book. Alissa and Strell are the deuteragonists, and they both complement each others' strengths and weaknesses quite well. Alissa is very hotheaded and stubborn (this is actually plot-relevant), but she recognizes that it's a major flaw towards the end and tries to work around it. Strell is a prejudiced asshole but quickly realizes that his worldview is dumb. And like, what? Characters who recognize their flaws and try to fix them? What a novelty concept, I wish other books included this more! I gotta say though, apart from their personalities, they are a bit cliché: Alissa is the gifted and powerful, but untrained magic user who accidentally wreaks havoc on everyone, and Strell is a bard whose music is somehow also hinted to be connected to the magic system somehow. Oh, and they are both (half-) oprhans because this is a fantasy book so parents are not allowed.
Big Bad Bailic was my biggest gripe with the book. He's a childhood friend of Alissa's dad and also his murderer, who's evil and insane because of course he is. He usurped the Hold, killed all his fellow mages and masters in an attempt to steal a valuable book to resurrect a fallen city and to establish a new world order, because the world sucks and only he can fix it. He spills that plan to a bunch of random kids and thinks nothing of it. Oh yeah, he also was in love with Alissa's mom and is still salty about having been rejected by her in favor of his former best friend. He's basically the average reddit incel who thinks he's superior to everyone but also continuously fails to outsmart two teenagers, so like. Yeah. A typical cardboard villain basically.
Then there was Useless, or Talo-Toecan, a former Master of the Hold aaaaaand... that's it. Genuinely, he was super boring. He popped every now and then to prevent Alissa and Strell from killing themselves out of stupidity and then he fucks off until the end of the book.
That's basically the entire cast and while I do like the deuteragonists a lot, I hope we'll get a few more side characters later.
The worldbuilding is probably going to be a lot more in-depth in the next books. What Dawn Cook does is, she lays out breadcrumbs. She doesn't outright explain anything - there are some hints to the lost civilization of Ese'Naower that Bailic wants to resurrect, there are some social issues between two people that don't get along for seemingly vague reasons, the Keepers and Masters aren't really explained much, the magic system is kept pretty vague with descriptions of paths to a source, and those can burn, and they can't really cast offensive magic (probably?) and yeah.
That breadcrumbing is not a bad thing by any means. I understand why it's done, and (at least for me) it was very effective. Was I frustrated on occasion? Yes, definitely. Do I want to read the next book? Yes, definitely. Though the world itself is nothing unique among fantasy books, it's all constructed with a lot of care and genuine emotion behind it, and I'll be glad to explore it in the next few books.
So, I liked the book a lot! It's a very solid fantasy book with very likeable characters and an interesting and unique magic system. Even though there is not much action, it's never gotten boring - each chapter felt like a small baby step towards the goal, and there was always room for characterization or interactions that felt genuine, interesting, or relaxing. It's a very obvious "stepping stone" book for later installments of the series, so if you don't mind slow-paced fantasy with good characters, definitely check this one out! I had a good time with it, so you might as well!
I started reading Dawn Cook's book "First Truth" and I'll give my thoughts so far:
Alissa and Strell are good deuteragonists! I love both of them! Alissa is a little shit with the patience of a toddler, and Strell is a little shit who needs to get over himself soon before someone (Alissa) pummels him. Thankfully they both seem capable of actual character development so yay! (I also ship them hard)
Talon is the best character so far, love me some aggressive bird.
I could do without the fantasy racism because that's getting a little old tbh, and the current "bad guy" being Alissa's dad's ex bestie is also kinda old, but I'll just roll with it for now. There's a lot worse out there.
