We ask authors to share their favorite ‘underrated’ books. Books they’d gift to readers that are ‘undiscovered’.
Recommended by author Christian Cameron
The Point of Hopes Melissa Scott’s ‘Astreiant’ series
Nicolas Rathe is a pointsman, a dedicated watchman in the great city of Astreiant. During the annual trade fair, with a city filled with travelers and merchants, someone is stealing children. The populace is getting angry and frightened and convinced that a foreigner must be to blame. Rathe calls on the aid of both an out-of-work soldier, the handsome Philip Eslingen, and the necromancer Istre b’Estorr. The art of astrology is a very real power in the kingdom and plays as much a role in politics as greed and intrigue. Rathe finds himself struggling to find the children before a major astrological event brings about catastrophe. The first in a series of fantasy novels filled with adventure, intrigue and gay romance. Winner of a Lambda Literary Award for Best LGBT Fantasy!
“Set in an alternative Middle Ages…this novel…offers intriguing looks at guild interrelationships, the uses of hand-cranked printing presses and medieval attitudes toward magic. It also offers considerable delight to those who enjoy intellectual puzzles of the fantastic kind.”
—Publishers Weekly
