Sun Catcher

Maia, flame-haired outsider adopted by the Cliff Dwellers, always believed that she was nothing more than a weaver’s daughter. Yet on her thirteenth birthday she discovers that she is something more, and something she never wanted to be. As Sun Catcher, she must face up to her uncanny power and bring life and hope back to a realm made sick by fratricide and betrayal.

Maia’s world is one in which moths spin silk that whispers deceptively of the future, where people ride to battle on aquatic lizards, and where women can harness the destructive and creative power of the sun itself. Whilst in many ways conforming to the conventions of epic fantasy, Rance’s simple and unadorned prose has the unexpected (and often powerful) effect of making the world that she describes and the story she tells both strange and unfamiliar. With its believable characters and vivid and unusual setting, Sun Catcher is an absorbing opening to what promises to be an engaging trilogy.