Griffin Blade and the Bronze Finger

Robbed. Griffin Blade is a thief who was robbed of a father, robbed of a childhood, and robbed of a jewel that he had stolen in the first place, a gem taken by a man with one defining characteristic. The jewel proves to be far more priceless—and the mysterious man far more significant—than he ever could have imagined. His quest to retrieve all that was lost takes him on an epic journey through a world in which the forces of greed and the champions of justice are on a collision course. Griffin and his eventual traveling band of misfit companions—a fugitive dwarf, a betrayed elf, an imprisoned minotaur, a conflicted djinni—find themselves at the center of a battle for control in Alastian. Drawn by the lure of a power beyond any other, they face peril at every turn. In the end, the very survival of their world may depend on Griffin Blade and his companions discovering the truth about themselves.

GRIFFIN BLADE AND THE BRONZE FINGER is the second novel by 14-year-old author Luke Herzog. DRAGON VALLEY (Why Not Books, 2012), written when he was just 9 and 10 years old, is the 200-page story of five lab-spawned dragons, their evolution, their offspring, and their epic battles over one thousand years in the valley they call home. The author was featured in Time Magazine for Kids, which is distributed to hundreds of thousands of schoolchildren, and he has received emails from young readers nationwide who have been inspired by the story.