« The Spirit Child » Alison Naomi Holt

You are invited to enter Ar’rothi, a world as vividly realized as Narnia or Middle Earth, a world where animal spirits guide humans towards enlightenment, and in which an orphaned girl and a warrior duchess must join forces against an evil that threatens everything they have learned to love. Bree is a duchess and a warrior: independent, prickly and strong. As a former commander in the elite Huntington’s Cavalry in the Queen’s Brigade, she knows how to fight. But when she takes on responsibility for an eight–year–old orphan, Katie, rescuing her from the men who want to defile her, she gets far more than she ever expected. For Katie is no ordinary girl. She is the Spirit Child, blessed and cursed with an unusual power… In the world of Ar’rothi there are seven realms. Humans progress through these realms with the help of their Spirit Guides – animals who teach them the skills they need to move onto the next plane. A Badger, a White Wolf, a Panther… although most humans have lost the ability to see their Guides, these Spirits play a vital part in everyone’s life. But now the Spirit Guides, and Ar’rothi itself, are under threat from Morgrad, the malevolent god of the underworld. In the shadows of the seventh realm, he is assembling a dark army, intent on destruction. Only the Spirit Child stands in the way of this terrible evil… but can she learn to use her powers before it is too late?