Publisher Description
Return to the tales of Will Hawthorne in this fantasy adventure from the New York Times bestselling author of Steeplejack and Sekret Machines!
First impressions are not always the right ones.
Transported to a mysterious land, Will Hawthorne and his band of adventurers find themselves unwilling participants in an eternal war between a nation of "fair folk" and…goblins!?!
Will quickly discovers that even though he does not believe in goblins, that doesn’t mean they won’t try to kill him.
The humans who shelter Will and his pals seem lifted straight from the pages of a storybook, people of propriety, culture, fashion, and wealth. As the war progresses, however, Will begins to wonder if there is something hiding beneath the expertly-coiffed veneer of their picture-perfect society.
Join Will on a fantasy adventure past the edges of the mapped world into the chaos of a land at war. Readers will be delighted to reunite with the cast of Act of Will in a new adventure in which the one thing likely to keep Will alive may be…his cynicism.
Praise for Act of Will -
“Fast paced and beautifully written” -- R.A. Salvatore
“I was amazed by these vividly knowledgeable adventures of a youth living by his wits in a world much like Elizabethan England.” -- David Drake
“Adventure meets a hero who just won’t shut up in this fast-talking charmer of a novel” -- Kate Elliott
“Hartley’s prose is so graceful, his narrative so taut and his battle-scenes so exciting and well-described… This is especially true of the compulsively readable second half which unfolds with remarkable grace and power.” -- Booklist
A “clever page-turner” -- Publishers Weekly (Starred review)
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Fans of 2009's Act of Will, Hartley's first tale featuring roguish almost-hero Will Hawthorne, may be disappointed that the adventurers split up early on and two don't reappear until late in the story. Fortunately, all of the fast pacing, outrageous dilemmas, and sharp, cynical humor are back in full force. Will and his intermittently traitorous friends are about to be captured by soldiers of the Diamond Empire when a mysterious ambassador smuggles them out of the city and possibly the world. They're almost immediately enmeshed in a war between goblins and the eerily humanlike Fair Folk, where nothing is certain except Will's ability to make a bad situation worse. Fans will dive in with the gusto of Will quaffing a tankard of beer, and new readers should have no problem keeping up.
