Markham has returned to Seattle, searching for Katarina, the girl who, a decade ago, touched his soul, literally tearing it from his body. But what he discovers upon arriving is dark magick - of a most ancient and destructive kind! An encounter with a desperate spirit, leaping destructively from host to host, sets Markham on the trail of secretive cabal of magicians seeking to punch a hole through heaven, extinguishing forever the divine spark. Armed with the Chorus, a phantasmal chain of human souls he wields as a weapon of will, Markham must engage in a magickal battle with earth-shattering stakes! Markum must delve deep into his past, calling on every aspect of his occult training for there to be any hope of a future. But delve he must, for Markham is a veneficus, a spirit thief, the Lightbreaker...

From Publishers Weekly

Teppo's urban fantasy debut explores a dramatic premise bogged down by pretentious passages of overblown monologue. Landis Markham, magick user and manipulator of the world's energies, spots a human soul possessing a deer. He follows it, intrigued, and soon lands in the midst of a power struggle that could destroy the world. Using a chain of captured souls to enhance his abilities, Markham chases an evil magus around Seattle and its suburbs as he pieces together a complex plot and continues his relentless fight to save innocents and heal the darkness in his soul. Tighter writing could have made this a page-turner and created more desire for the inevitable sequels, but Teppo beats metaphors into the ground and segments of purple prose mire the plot and distract from the strong characters. (Sept.)
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