The Flight from Kar (The Emperor's Library: Book One)

The Flight from Kar opens The Emperor’s Library series with seventeen-year-old Jon’s trial and expulsion from the only home he has known, the Valley of Women. In the larger world beyond the Valley, he finds a love that will change his destiny and unexpected allies among old and new friends, including Zoë the Forester and her family. But a brewing religious war ends Jon’s idyllic romance with Zoë’s brother John and sends him with his comrades to Kar, the imperial capital, to save the Emperor from the fanatics who menace the city. A last-ditch attempt to rescue the Emperor’s Library from their onslaught leads to a journey of remarkable discovery, in which the travelers encounter unknown lands and intimations of an undreamed-of past. Can they use this knowledge in their counteroffensive against the enemies of the Empire, the religious zealots who call themselves The Chosen?
Part high fantasy, part adventure, part psychological exploration, The Flight from Kar and the novels that follow introduce readers to a vividly realized alternative world in which strange powers from a forgotten past threaten to destroy the present. Against this backdrop, Jon, Zoë and their friends take on responsibilities that transform them in unexpected ways.