A review by jamesnotlatimer
Clearwater Dawn by Scott Fitzgerald Gray

5.0

Clearwater Dawn is a tightly-woven, almost claustrophobic mystery-adventure tale, focusing on the role of one pivotal minor player in major affairs. It features a lot of traditional tropes (a princess, a stable-boy, political intrigue, assassins) but is definitely a grown-up rather than YA story (in theme – I don’t want to imply it’s X- or even R-rated). Some of our readers appreciated the focus on one POV, and the nuanced worldbuilding. Others found the love story – among other elements – less believable. Character introspection often slows the pace down a bit, but after a rough start this rumbles along nicely and reaches a self-contained conclusion while leaving room for continuing adventures.

(This is from my longer review for Fantasy Faction: http://fantasy-faction.com/2017/spfbo-review-clearwater-dawn-by-scott-fitzgerald-gray)