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I bought a novel about a month ago called: Midwinter by Matthew Sturges

summary: Winter only comes to the land once in a hundred years. But the snow covers ancient secrets: secrets that could topple a kingdom.
Mauritaine was a war hero, a Captain in the Seelie Army. Then he was accused of treason and sentenced to life without parole at Crere Sulace, a dark and ancient prison in the mountains, far from the City Emerald. But now the Seelie Queen--Regina Titania herself--has offered him one last chance to redeem himself, an opportunity to regain his freedom and his honor.

Unfortunately, it s a suicide mission, which is why only Mauritaine and the few prisoners he trusts enough to accompany him, would even dare attempt it. Raieve, beautiful and harsh, an emissary from a foreign land caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. Perrin Alt, Lord Silverdun, a nobleman imprisoned as a result of political intrigues so Byzantine that not even he understands them. Brian Satterly, a human physicist, apprehended searching for the human victims of the faery changeling trade.

Meanwhile, dark forces are at work at home and abroad. In the Seelie kingdom, the reluctant soldier Purane-Es burns with hatred for Mauritaine, and plots to steal from him the one thing that remains to him: his wife. Across the border, the black artist Hy Pezho courts the whim of Mab, offering a deadly weapon that could allow the Unseelie in their flying cities to crush Titania and her army once and for all.

With time running out, Mauritaine and his companions must cross the deadly Contested Lands filled with dire magical fallout from wars past. They will confront mounted patrols, brigands, and a traitor in their midst. And before they reach their destination, as the Unseelie Armies led by Queen Mab approach the border, Mauritaine must decide between his own freedom and the fate of the very land that has forsaken him.



This is sturges' first novel, he has written for DC comics before this. The novel has some mistakes here and there, but nothing that really inhibits the reader. I really like this novel and recommend it for fantasy fans (besides supporting new authors is always nice XD). Most of the main characters (except for poor Satterly, the human from Earth) are Elves from the Seelie and Unseelie courts. Very fun and imagentive and not too lengthy (pretty cover art is a bonus, he did work in comics), I wanted to share this fun Elf title with all my Elf friends heart

Titania is generally given as the name of the Queen of Faerie anytime Shakespeare writes about her, though I know shortly before that time period the queen was agreed to be Mab/Maeve. I'm not sure where the name Titania comes from, though I know Mab/Maeve is old Celtic (dialect determines spelling). These days, since the Bard wrote it that way, Titania is generally held to be the name of the Queen. I'll have to check my Spencer to see what he called her, though I'm pretty sure it wasn't either of those two. His was an allegory for Elizabeth anyway...

Oh - and thank you Showren for giving a neat, book-jackety sort of review! It sounds like it might be an interesting read.