Blood of The Levant: Ichor Heart, Book 1

Abdullah Yousef
Paperback, 346 pages
9798835932696

As a century of war and bloodshed closes upon the earth, another opens with no end to the slaughter in sight. The world is changing; the Empire of Europa and the Russian Tsardom are engaged in perpetual warfare. Each vies for absolute control over the earth's most coveted resource: the Ichor ore that lies deep in the valleys of the high north, the caves of the Orient, and running through the veins of a select few called Ichor Hearts; employed by the European Empire as the holy weapons of their never-ending conquest.

Omar is one of those born with that gift. A Muslim boy from the Syrian village of Deir Ezzor, a fertile land vassal to Europa, he dreams of what lies beyond the extents of his modest living with his mother, to discover what it means to be a true warrior in a world the stories of which leave him in constant awe. When struck by unfathomable violation and tragedy, it sets him on a path that reveals destruction, love, and the most brutal test of his faith imaginable.

On the other side of the eternal war is the Russian Prince, Yuri Romanov. A boy like Omar, haunted by nightmares and visions of his greatest fears, he fights to unravel the mystery of his origin and is willing to do whatever it takes to reach the truth behind the loss of those he loved most.

In Abdullah Yousef's first installment of Ichor Heart, Blood of The Levant is an adventure that blends the eruption of ancient men in a modern, ever-changing world. Their desires, love, cruelty, and connection with God clash with the ebb and flow of their political world that sees such men as their tools of destruction. It is a story about the bonds between men at war, kingship, fatherhood, and the struggle to retain one's faith in the face of ever-growing darkness at the hands of tyrants.