Hawkspar shares the fascinating world Holly created for Talyn, but is not dependent on the early book except for a small bit of crossover. While Talyn focused in on the Tonk and their culture, Hawkspar takes us much further, both in physical movement and in broadening our knowledge of the world itself.

The story begins with a young woman who was captured into slavery at a young age. She was bought by a rigid monastery culture where she has endured years of training designed to strip her of individuality and absorb her into traditions that include feeding those who disobey to starving rats while the rest of the monastery watches, a warning as to their own future.

But this young, nameless woman remembers only one thing. She is Tonk. That’s enough to sustain her, enough to drive her into a dangerous subterfuge as she plans to free not just herself but all those others who have secretly joined in her cause. They seek freedom from the dictates of the Oracles, women bound to magical stones that sit in the place of their eyes and offer up powers that kings have paid handsomely for.

A wish, a hope, a prayer, cast into the shower water is sent out through the drain and across the ocean to draw the attention of a Tonk tracker, the last of his family barring the sister he seeks still. He had returned from his manhood ceremony to discover slavers destroyed his home, taking his sister and others who did not die in the fight with them. He and a close friend vowed to find her, a task more and more hopeless as the years fade, but one he refuses to set aside.

The Tonk slave’s cry offers again that glimmer of hope, enough of one that he’s willing to leave his current company and become a captain of his own ship even when acrimony from his former captain fights him every step of the way. He plans to cross deadly waters and enter uncharted lands in a ship raised from the bottom of the sea with a crew gathered from the few greedy enough to sail with a madman to rescue this Tonk and the slaves she says are with her even though wiser heads claim it a suicide mission.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg that is Hawkspar. The characters themselves are largely ignorant of the extent to which their lives have been drawn not by the gods they claim, but by an enemy only the tainted eyes of an Oracle can see, and then only in glimmers.

This story is easily hands down the most complex of Holly’s works I’ve read, and that’s saying a lot. There’s action, adventure, romance, tragedy, politics, and war. The characters have everything set against them and then some, have help from unlikely allies, and danger comes in what seems to be innocuous. Once again the cultures are rich, detailed, and relevant; the enemies fall into both small and large, immediate and more far-reaching than anyone could have imagined. The ending is unexpected, but in a way so right that it’s wonderful, building on what happened before without their intent being clear until the moment comes. I love when books manage to surprise me in a good way so that I can see the roots of the event spreading throughout the earlier pages even though I failed to put the pieces together in the correct configuration.

If you love fantasy that focuses on cultures and people, if you want to see characters overcome seemingly impossible obstacles in unique and refreshing ways, Hawkspar will satisfy your desires and leave you craving more in this world, and more from such a skilled author.