A Shadow Over Heaven's Eye

Set in the world of Exalted, the book is a story about Swan's visit to Yane. It's a city with a society where people are assigned to a specific caste based on the alignment of stars during their birth and the social status of their families. Swan is a foreign diplomat arriving to help his friend, a royal of Yane. He is also a Solar Exalted, Chosen by the Sun and commonly believed to be a demon in mortal flesh.

The story focuses in part on Swan's mission to help in trade relationships between cities, a drug plot and young Maylea. It doesn't take long for Swan to note that Maylea, the daughter of his friend, is on the cusp of Exaltation. The young girl is flooded with new memories about herself and the diplomat which causes confusion to form between her and Swan, especially considering she is soon to be married.

For players of Exalted, Maylea's memories will end up surprising, I certainly never thought of using pre-Exaltation memories in such a clever way. Further tying them into the ongoing plot, which is revealed to be truly epic, is just one reason to applaud the author. Naturally, no Exalted book is complete without fight scenes between Chosen, this holds true here. Not only that, the final fight scene is in an exotic scenery which only makes it harder for Swan to come out victorious. All this as we slowly get to know how his final opponent figures into the story and what are her motivations.

While there are many threads running throughout the book, they are cleverly tied together at the very last chapters. Meaning the full picture is for us to discover after we reach the epilogue.