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Once Upon a Ren Faire
“A. C. Castillo’s novel Once Upon a Ren Faire fulfills and subverts fantasy tropes while exploring themes of family pain. ”
—Lorehaven on Mar 31, 2023

Please Return to the Lands of Luxury
“Jon Tilton explores complex topics like memory loss, personal and societal responsibility in this light sci-fi story.”
—Lorehaven on Mar 24, 2023

Exile
“This gentle fantasy from Loren G. Warnemuende shows little magic or strange creatures, focusing on complex emotions and relationships.”
—Lorehaven on Mar 17, 2023

Illusion
“Frank Peretti’s last novel creates a romantic world with sci-fi flourishes where likeable heroes, villain twists, and familiar places sell a dramatic performance.”
—Lorehaven on Mar 10, 2023

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Lorehaven helps Christian fans explore fantastical stories for Christ’s glory: fantasy, science fiction, and beyond. Articles, the library, reviews, podcasts, gifts, and the Lorehaven Guild community help fans discern and enjoy the best Christian-made fantastical stories, applying their meanings to the real world Jesus Christ calls us to serve. Subscribe free to get any updates you choose and to access the Lorehaven Guild.
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/ Library
Author:
Emily Hayse
Ages:
teens/YA
Genres:
fantasy
BookTags:
dogs family quest
Publisher:
Indie published
Lorehaven may use referral links. As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases.
“Good heroes live in Emily Hayse’s Arctic-flavored fantasy.”
—Lorehaven review, fall 2020

Seventh City

Armed with a wolf-dog and a heart of courage, Maki sets out on a journey that will demand all her strength and cunning.
Emily Hayse · fantasy for teens/YA readers · August 2019

“Let me tell you a story that happened so long ago that only the hills and rivers can remember the time . . .”

All her life, thirteen-year-old Maki has heard tales of the legendary city of gold, buried deep in the northern frontier. But when her village is burned and her brother captured by cruel invaders, the legend becomes desperately real.

Armed with a wolf-dog and a heart of courage, Maki sets out on a journey that will demand all her strength and cunning. She is determined to bring her brother home at all costs. Yet as her quest leads her deep into a wilderness of ancient dangers, Maki realizes that even for her, some prices are too high to pay.

Lorehaven may use referral links. As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases.

Review of Featured Review: Seventh City

Good heroes live in Emily Hayse’s Arctic-flavored fantasy.
Lorehaven Review Team, fall 2020

Cold weather can bring wintry mixes of ice and freezing rain, which in turn can give us mixed feelings. Songs may romanticize falling snow and crackling fires, while kids long for days home from school. Then reality stings our skin with frostbite and makes grown-ups fear icy injuries and frozen pipes. Is winter, then, good or bad? It’s both and neither. Winter is just a season, offering equal parts peril and cheer.

So it is with Seventh City, the wintry-mixed and morally challenging fantasy from Emily Hayse. Set in a land north of this fantasy world’s Arctic circle, this tale starts simply: a young mother tells her daughter, Maki, about the fabled city, Inik Katsuk.

This is “the place where the heroes dwell,” the mother recalls. “It was closed to all but those who proved themselves worthy. . . . And the good live there.”

A day later, Maki and her older brother, Tsanu, can’t find her. Their mother has abandoned them. From there, Seventh City fulfills its silent pledge to explore a land of incredible physical and moral terrain. Chilled weather threatens your life, yet also blesses you with epic snowscapes, campfire camaraderie, and glimpses of the aurora borealis. Meanwhile, even heroes must tread on ground frozen by bitter grief: When Tsanu is kidnapped by a foreign military captain determined to find the lost city, Maki must rescue him by infiltrating the camp of these hated Invaders.

It’s in this territory, often unmapped by Christian readers, that Seventh City truly inspires. Yes, these Invaders are only irredeemable. Or are they? Yes, Maki’s people, the land’s natives, are only oppressed victims. Or are they? Readers tempted to favor simplistic approaches to the obvious bad guys—even invaders!—may grow by imagining themselves in a land that leaves one no easy choices to survive or do the most good. As one Invader (boldly named Ransom) phrases it, “There are many ways to react to the wrong we see in the world, Maki. Some run away from it, have nothing to do with it. Others ignore it—I cannot speak for them. It is the coward’s way. And still others brave it to its face and try, in their way, to make it better.”

Like a skilled dogsled driver, Hayse navigates such perilous turns and keeps all jostling characters and subplots on their course. It’s a beauty to behold, especially when realization dawns about these deeper cultural and moral themes.

Lest one expect any literary slush, it’s all been pre-cleared for smooth sledding. Sure, we’ve read those brave-girl-dresses-up-as-boy stories and seen other lost-city stories, but City treats these as relatively minor elements. Even one great leap, the concept that an ambitious and abusive Invader captain would trust one strange young man’s word about an ancient city, makes more sense by the story’s end.

Hayse portrays this land so realistically, even with detailed handling of horse-care and snowshoe-crafting, that one half-expects to hear mentions of the Klondike Gold Rush. Seventh City feels like a lost history from our own world. It is only separated from reality by imaginative touches like a mythical city and giant creatures.

Bundle up for Seventh City’s fantastical journey, and don’t mind the wintry skies. Only from such gray areas can we experience the lessons and wonders of winter.

Best for: Young-adult readers and older.

Discern: Trauma after parent’s abandonment, vengeful thoughts, and battles with images of animal and human injuries as well as authority figure acting abusively in sacrifice to his selfish ambition, provoking different responses from others.

More from Lorehaven’s fall 2020 cover story

  • Novelist Emily Hayse explores her story’s themes of grief and letting go.
  • Seventh City, featured review
  • Seventh City, prologue

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Lorehaven magazine, spring 2020

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Lorehaven helps Christian fans explore fantastical stories for Christ’s glory: fantasy, science fiction, and beyond. Articles, the library, reviews, podcasts, gifts, and the Lorehaven Guild community help fans discern and enjoy the best Christian-made fantastical stories, applying their meanings to the real world Jesus Christ calls us to serve. Subscribe free to get any updates you choose and to access the Lorehaven Guild.
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