Fortune's Pawn- A review

Fortune's Pawn by Nancy A. Hansen
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Fortune’s Pawn- A Review

First let me start off by saying I used to be a huge fantasy fan, I read all the ‘Lord of the Rings’ books as well as the Margaret Weiss-Tracy Hickman “Dragonlance” books and many others too numerous to mention or remember at this point. I even recently wrote a modern day fantasy novel Called “Redemption of the Sorcerer” which I pulled from its publisher and will be re-releasing shortly with a much less inept publisher.
But all of that is an aside at best. We’re here to talk about Nancy Hansen’s fantasy Novel, ‘Fortune’s Pawn’.
Like most fantasy novels this one takes place in a world all its own, a world of Elves and Humans and Faeries and Dwarves. It’s a world built where Humans and Elves are fighting over the same lands and distrusting as well as outright hating the other race with no reason, or understanding why. In the midst of it all is a human wizard named ‘Kendahl’ (I couldn’t help but think Nancy was naming him ‘Ken Doll’ in a tongue in cheek nod to a childhood toy.) is trying to bring about something momentous, a birth between two species. The Human and the Elven which will grant this world a savior against the encroaching dark enemy. The other protagonists are ‘Callie’ a young human/dwarf girl who is the key to all of this and ‘Levanti’, the elf who will be destined to be her suitor. There are many other minor characters throughout but these are the important ones.
Throughout this tome there are machinations put into place by both the light and the dark forces to achieve that side’s victory, though one problem I have with all of this is that we are not told exactly what is at stake for either side. It is all very shadowy. We know the dark is the evil in all of this so they should not win, but what is the significance of the pre-destined child? Will she gather all the races together? That is what I have to assume at least as, unless I missed it, we are not told as of yet.
All of that aside though ‘Fortune’s Pawn’ is an intriguing, well written, well thought out fantasy novel that has something very special going for it. Remember when I said earlier that I used to read all manner of fantasy novels back in the day? The reason I stopped was that they kept becoming longer and longer, with more and more multiple volumes coming out. Hey I’m all for telling a story, but I don’t need a dozen six hundred page books to do so. That being said, ‘Fortune’s Pawn’ was pleasantly short enough to make it interesting and to the point. The characterizations were flawless and intriguing, which served to set up the longer tale for future volumes (Yes, this is a multi-book arc, but I’m not concerned as I would be with ‘Wheel of time’ or ‘Harry Potter’ and its ilk.)
Nancy crafted a very nice story and world here which should prove interesting as the subsequent volumes come out. The page count was exactly where it should be, which was low enough to get through the story in a few days and high enough to make one never lose interest in the novel and to keep us intrigued enough to want more. Which I know I do.
I’m going to give ‘Fortunes Pawn’ a 5 star review in that I could really find nothing wrong with it to complain about. The one small complaint I had, which was chronicled above is minor and will be dealt with in the next volume which incidentally just came out.
If you enjoy lush fantasy, then this one is for you.


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