Where's My Bookmark: The Left Hand of God by Paul Hoffman

How was your weekend? I spent mine reading (of course), and watching movies (Insidious, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows pt 2, and Prince of Persia -- it was a Sunday night, we're lazy and eating dinner watch). And cooking. Did lots of that this weekend as well.

I finished up a couple of books this weekend (yay!) and managed to start one more before Sunday ended, Paul Hoffman's The Left Hand of God. I have to admit, I walked out of HP in the mood for more epic fantasy, so we'll see if Hoffman hits the spot!

This is the first in the trilogy (book two, The Last Four Things, is due out Aug 4) and I was hooked on the first page. Hoffman's imagery is amazing. I felt like I was there in the Sanctuary, running my hands on those rough walls! But I've only scratched the surface. I was able to read for just an hour before I fell asleep and now I can't wait for the work day to end so that I can get back to Cale's story!

Here's the description from Hoffman's website:

Listen. The Sanctuary of the Redeemers on Shotover Scarp is named after a damned lie, for there is no redemption that goes on there and less sanctuary…

In the Redeemer Sanctuary, the stronghold of a secretive sect of warrior monks, torture and death await the unsuccessful or disobedient. Raised by the Redeemers from early childhood like hundreds of other young captives, Thomas Cale has known only deprivation, punishment, and grueling training. He doesn’t know that another world exists outside the fortress walls or even that secrets he can’t imagine lurk behind the Sanctuary’s many forbidden doorways. He doesn’t know that his master Lord Bosco and the Sanctuary’s Redeemers have been preparing for a holy war for centuries—a holy war that is now imminent. And Cale doesn’t know that he’s been noticed and quietly cultivated.

Then, Cale decides to open a door.

It’s a door that leads to one of the Redeemers’ darkest secrets and a choice that is really no choice at all: certain death or daring escape. Adrift in the wider world for the first time in his young life, Cale soon finds himself in Memphis, the capitol of culture—and the den of Sin. It’s there that Cale discovers his prodigious gift: violence. And he discovers that after years of abuse at the hands of the Redeemers his embittered heart is still capable of loving—and breaking.

But the Redeemers won’t accept the defection of their special subject without a fight. As the clash of civilizations that has been looming for thousands of years draws near, a world where the faithful are as brutal as the sinful looks to young Cale to decide its fate.

The Left Hand of God is out in paperback now. It's my understanding that the trilogy has been doing very well in the UK and that this was one of those series that publishers were vying for.