DRC Review: The Sapphire Heart by Three Scribes
- Story Eater
- 3 hours ago
- 3 min read
Release Date: 20 October 2025
Rating: 4/5
Synopsis:Â IT IS WRITTEN THAT AN ERYNVOR WILL SAVE EOLEMAR. TEN HAVE FAILED. WILL THE ELEVENTH SUCCEED?
Elorah longs to revive her wasting homeland, but everything she’s been taught suggests the path is nothing but myths and legends. That is, until a vision from a Founding Dragon affirms her as the fated Erynvor, the one who will restore the power centers of Eolemar.
Now, Elorah and her assembled group—a noble-born terramancer, a wind-harnessing gryphon-tamer, a firestarter in love, a wide-eyed innocent, a deal-making rapscallion, and a mysterious dreamwalker—must align their powers and embark on a quest spanning not only a waking world full of dangerous men and terrifying beasts, but an even more perilous dreamworld, where an immortal being with a grudge threatens to steal their souls.
Will Elorah and her companions restore balance to Eolemar, or will their realm be forever lost?
Review
Readers whose fantasy jam reads quest with buddy banter and found family will find The Sapphire Heart fits right in on their shelf. Also, Jeff Brown has done the cover art, so it's going to fit in and look amazing. The authors introduce a rich and complex world with lots of magic, plenty of diverse places and folk, and impressive creatures that leap off the page (or mountain). Also, this honking doorstop weighs in at 624 pages, so tuck in and get comfy; the reading will last a while.Â
I love a nice, fat fantasy book with world building that takes me away from this dumpster fire, and The Sapphire Heart builds a huge world in spades. Different regions and magic systems fill every page with abundance. While this bodes well for veteran fantasy readers, readers looking to dip their toes into fantasy may want to shelve this for a more practiced reading venture. Those who read a lot of fantasy will feel right at home—many of the features in this story call to mind The Wheel of Time, A Song of Ice and Fire, and even a couple of indies for me such as Morgan L. Busse's The Ravenwood Saga and J.D.L. Rosell's Ranger of the Titan Wilds series with an extra added sprinkle of some The Legend of Zelda for good measure.
The story introduces to readers seven main characters, complete with backgrounds and special abilities, and brings them all together at the end to save Eolemar in an epic, action-packed ending. Elorah and Co. (my favorite would be Rachmyn—I do love a loyal grumpy pants) are great characters with compelling backgrounds. As is typical with epic fantasies centering around a quest and a large cast, each character must be introduced individually before teaming up with the rest of the group and continuing on together. The drawback for so many main characters, antagonists, lore, and subtext, comes with the introductions taking up a long segment of the book and scant room left for collective journey action.Â
I would have loved to see more interactions among all of the characters together and some more background for some of the antagonists, but I'm not sure how that would have been possible with the book already as long as it is and the first one in the series besides. Despite that, I look forward to more of The Erynvor Cycle with the foundation laid and the action hitting the page hard right when the first chapter opens.Â
My thanks to the authors for the DRC, for which I willingly give my own, honest opinion.