Off the Bookshelf: DIVINE SUMMONS, Windrider Saga #1, by Rebecca Minor

It's always cool to look up -- and then download and read -- a book by someone you've recently met, in person, talked to, gotten to know. I met Rebecca Minor at the first Realm Makers Conference in St. Louis. Not only has she put together the Faith and Fantasy Alliance (which I still have to remember to join!) but she knows how to throw one incredible "party" for spec fic writers.

Should have guessed from her incredible, intricate elf costume at the banquet that her book would be the same way -- elves, swords, quests, danger, dragons, prophecies, half-bloods, snarky comments. She's got it all!

Vinyanel Ecleriast is an elf warrior with a major attitude. That can be good when your kingdom and your king are threatened by nasty lizardy enemies called the Dragonkin -- not to be confused with real dragons, because at least some turn out to be the good guys. This is only the first book, so I don't know the final score on that one. Vinyanel has already lost most of his fellow-soldiers in the effort to get a power chalice out of enemy hands and to the king. Then he runs into a prophetess with a 'tude of her own, and a problem with heights, which doesn't work out so good when they have to escape certain death on the back of a dragon!

And that's just the first few pages. This is a fast read, and even though some of the prose took on a lavender tinge in spots ... it's fun! Can't wait to see what kind of trouble Vinyanel and his friends/allies/reluctantly accepted mentors face in the next book.