Soulbinder

I've always said that as a writer, you can only write the book you, yourself, want to read, and then you can only hope that others will want to read it as well. That's the advice I always give to students I teach, that's what I tell people when I do presentations–the rest is just details. Sebastien de Castell not only writes books that I want to read, but he writes the books that I wish I'd written. Something about his style of storytelling, his characters, his plots, his level of detail–it synchs up perfectly with what I feel makes a great story. I can given him no higher praise than that. Since I first discovered his debut “The Traitor's Blade”–the first book in his Greatcoats quartet–he has been in my pantheon of my favorite writers.

I'm a little depressed by this book, because I know that Kellen Argos only has one more go-round before this series ends. It's a great YA series, but the stories are not dumbed down at all. They fit with adult sensibilities and the characters are easily reachable by adults, despite their youth. In many ways, Kellen is the guy I wanted to be as a teenager–hell, he's kind of the guy I wish I could be now. It has been a pleasure to witness his journey over the four books in this series so far, and I look forward to the fifth book–even if it is the final in the series.

When people ask me for recommendations, de Castell is always on the tip of my tongue. Right up there with Rafael Sabatini and Alexandre Dumas. Dude's good. Flat-out good.