Hello all! I am challenging myself to return to regular sharing/posting on my social media sites so I have taken a series of nine photos to share with y’all over the next nine days! I picked out books 1-3 of three separate series that I love and will write about them here, on bookstagram, on twitter, and possibly finish it all off with a podcast!

For the first of the nine posts I am featuring my favorite “comfort read” series of all time: L. E. Modesitt Jr’s Recluce Saga! What exactly do I mean by “comfort read”? WELL I AM GLAD YOU (possibly) ASKED! For me a “comfort read” is a book/series/author that when you pick up that book you feel like you are coming home. That is exactly what reading the Recluce Saga feels like to me after all these years of reading it. More on that later in this blog, let’s discuss this book!

The Magic Of Recluce is a wonderful coming of age tale set in a magical world that exists within a balance between Chaos and Order. Lerris (the star of this tale) discovers he has the potential to be a focal point for either side of the balance and is sent away from his homeland in order to discover exactly who and what he is and can become. Kind of harsh that his own country kicks him out, but they do give him a little schooling before he goes where he meets others who are like him in that their country doesn’t feel they belong, but thinks they might belong after traveling abroad. Here’s the thing: the rest of the world doesn’t really like their home country so the odds of survival aren’t going yo be in their favor. I have to admit I’ve always been a touch jealous of the schooling that Lerris was offered, but definitely not jealous of the exile.

While on his personal journey of discovery Lerris also becomes quite the carpenter! One of the most magical things for me about the Recluce Saga is that you get to learn about different crafts in each book. Modesitt educates while entertaining. In other books you get to learn about being a cooper or a scribe or any number of amazing crafts!

The Recluce Saga is a multigenerational High Fantasy tale which is not written in chronological order. Modesitt takes you on a journey into the concept of Recluce as you read along in publication order so definitely read in publication order. Normally you will find two consecutive books dedicated to one primary character, but sometimes there are standalones.

Ok on Bookstagram I had promised I’d tell the tale of how I discovered this series, and I will but not fully in this post! I’ll share that in the next Recluce post which will be soon in this series if nine posts BUT as a teaser for those of you who love High Fantasy can you name the artist who painted this cover and maybe guess the other High Fantasy series I saw this artist’s art on that drew my eye to Recluce? That is the teaser! More next time.