The Light Heart of Stone (Volume 1)

When rocks no longer speak clearly and the bounty of the Indidjiny homeland begins to wither in the fields, 11-year-old Fox and the 84-year-old Oak Companion meet under the canvas roof of a testing tent. A blood touch, a jolt of raw talent and Fox is wrenched from her family, forcibly adopted into the famous Oak clan, and thrust into the slow culture of the city of Komey. Fox's adoption should signal a life of bound motherhood, but nothing is as it seems. The Companionaris' ability to grow plants and breed animals is failing, a murderous ambition has been sparked and must be stopped, and there is a stirring of old magic in the air. The Light Heart of Stone is a wonderful, fresh epic fantasy novel, set in the world of the Stone Body, a continent on which plants and animals need human companions in order to thrive. For more than one thousand years, the Companionaris and the Indidjinies have lived side-by-side. The colonising Companionaris control the talent for growing plants and breeding animals. The colonised Indidjinies own the land. And so, it would seem, some sort of balance has been achieved. The novel opens at a time when that balance is faltering and the fragile harmony between the two peoples is fracturing. The companionship system is in crisis. Crops are failing, fishing boats are returning to villages with empty baskets, vast areas of land have become barren, and there are famine refugees. The peace cannot and will not last. Both the Indidjinies and the Companionaris must find new ways and new leaders. The question is, will the path out of crisis be violent or is there another, more ancient way for this vibrant world to escape disaster? Recommended For The Light Heart of Stone is a fascinating novel that will enthral adult and young-adult readers, especially lovers of epic fantasy. Roxburgh's experience as a genre writer and exceptional storytelling skills bring the customs, passions, and dramas of this rich speculative world to life in a manner reminiscent of Robin Hobb's Live Ship Traders and Lian Hearn's Tales of the Otori. Heroes There are three heroes in the novel. The youngest is an Indidjiny girl named Fox who is forcibly adopted into a Companionari family. The next, an Indidjiny rebel named Mica, believes he can hear the desires of stones and can find the meaning of events in the Indidjiny story-telling rituals. The last, the Oak Companion, heads the family that controls the continent's oak and cork trees. Themes The speculative themes in The Light Heart of Stone reflect a number of contemporary Australian and global concerns, including the inherent risk of relying on finite resources for prosperity, the precarious nature of indigenous and non-indigenous relations, the possibility of revisiting historical narratives, the risks to agriculture posed by genetically modified flora and fauna, and the vulnerability of Australia's fragile biota. About the Author Tor Roxburgh's fiction and non-fiction books have been published by William Heinemann Australia, Pan Australia, Pan UK, Australian Consolidated Press, Greenhouse Publications and The Federation Press. She is an experienced genre author, writing as Linda Hollan, Gina Walsh and KD Miller, with a track record of 12 teenage romances. She created Curious Crow Books to publish her speculative fiction. Tor lives in Australia and runs a successful public art business and a gallery where she exhibits her paintings. She was the senior writer and researcher on the National Inquiry into Youth Homelessness (with Dev Mukagee) and wrote Taking Control, one of the first successful Australian titles about family violence.