Isle of Blood and Stone

In the island kingdom of St. John del Mar, a picnic goes horribly wrong when the wine is poisoned, the guards are slain, and two heirs to the throne vanish, along with their tutor Lord Antoni, the Royal Navigator and mapmaker. Eighteen years later, the mapmaker's rebellious son Elias, a mapmaker himself, is summoned by the king to examine a pair of maps. Both are in Lord Antoni's hand, and at least one contains details of changes more recent than his disappearance, raising the possibility that Elias's father is alive. Although worried about the effect on his beloved new blended family, Elias reluctantly agrees to look into the maps' origins, hoping to provide the king with answers about what became of his two older brothers. Elias is assisted in his quest by the king's cousin Mercedes, with whom he falls swiftly in love. The rich history and culture of del Mar is delicately but surely sketched, with eerie supernaturalism and dreadful disease both playing roles, and Elias's initial defiance is contrasted neatly with Mercedes's battered reserve. Deftly employing suspense and mystery, bolstered by tantalizing details about strange beasts and geographical fascinations, this original fantasy drops hints with masterful precision, tracing clues left in the maps to a startling conclusion. anita l. burkam