C. L. Talmadge has been a professional, published writer since 1976; she’s a columnist for the North Star Writers’ Group, and has been syndicated in many different major newspapers. She always knew she wanted to write a novel, and finally managed, producing three. She formed her own publishing company (or imprint), Healing Stone Press, to publish and market her books. As an added bonus, her website contains full versions of all the novels, available for browsing. They’re in Flash format, so one probably wouldn’t read the entire thing, but it’s a good way to get a taste of any of the currently-available volumes.

Lt. Helen Andros is a half-breed; her mother, who has since disappeared, was Turanian, which is the conquered class, and her father was Toltec, the ruling class. She doesn’t know who her father is, though; she’s been serving in the military as a doctor/medic as an anonymous sort for nearly half her life. One day, she is asked to help a prince who is a political prisoner, and due to those selfsame politics, is arrested and put to trial for sullying a pure Toltec city herself. Only one thing can save her — the identity of her father — and knowing that might get her into much more political danger than she ever dreamed . . .

I think that Ms. Talmadge’s greatest strength with this first novel was the creation of her world. Although I didn’t easily place it in any given time period or anything, I decided it was set in a far-distant future time on a world that has lost most technology, although retained some communication technology and levels of medicine similar in many ways to the current day. It was a very interesting society, with all sorts of pitfalls lurking for the unwary. Helen, in many ways, was the unwary, unfortunately. Her half-breed status is very uncomfortable; while life has been fine for her in the military, out of it, she’s not going to be so lucky.

Helen is a likable, albeit slightly naive, woman; her skills at healing sometimes eclipse her age and training, and although we haven’t quite heard very much about her true abilities, I anticipate that we’ll learn a good deal more in the next volumes. The other characters — well, one problem I had with this book was that there were too many characters, and I found it very difficult to tell them apart. Given, there is a glossary in the back, but I suspect that a list or a family tree by name, and in order of importance, would be more useful for me. Other readers may not have this problem. That having been said, I very much liked Judith and Lady Naomi; both were very strong female characters and had surprising depths.

Overall, I think the highest compliment I can pay to this book is that I’m very much interested in reading the next volume. While the plot wasn’t very straightforward and the point of view shifted quite often, I feel that both my confusion with the plot and any short diversions into a point of view that seemed less important would be resolved in the next volumes. I’ve got the second and third in my queue, and I understand that there is a fourth volume to be released at some point. If one likes complex, epic fantasies with a heart and strong and dangerous politics, I’d suggest giving these books a try. 3.5/5 stars.