STORM RISING Author:MERCEDES LACKEY BOOK CLUB EDITION - With Storm Warning, the first valume of the Mage Storms trilogy, best selling author Mercedes Lackey returned readers to a Valdemar where the dire threat of war with the powerful, sorcerous Eastern Empire had forced the kingdom of Valdemar into an uneasy coalition with its traditional enemy, the neighboring kingdome of Karse.... more » Now, in Storm Rising, mysterious mage-storms are wreaking havoc on Valdemar, Karse and all the kingdoms of the West, plaguing these lands not only with disastrous earthquakes, monsoons, and ice storms, but also with venomous magical constructs - terrifying creatures of of nightmare. Both Valdemar's Heralds and Karse's Sunpriests struggle to marshal their combined magical resources to protect their realms from these devastating, spell fueled on slaughts, but as the situation becomes bleaker and bleaker, the still fragile alliance between these long-hostile lands begins to fray. And when Karal, the young Karsite envoy to the court of Valdemar, is wrongfully accused of collusion with the enemy, only the personal intervention of Solaris, the High Preistess and ruler of Karse, can defuse what is rapidly becoming a dangerously explosive situation, But Solaris also confirms the worst fears of the Heralds - that these storms do not come from the Eastern Empire , but from a completely unknown source. And unless Valdemar and Karse can located and destroy the creator of the storms, they may see their entire world demolished in a final magical holocaust.« less