Preview of Firegold Summary:

Among fantasy quest novels for young adults, Firegold is outstanding for its original and evocative world building and its insightful treatment of the problems of growing up with a mixed, if unadmitted, cultural heritage.

Its young hero, Jonathon Brae, develops many strange symptoms as he becomes a teenager. When he begins to hear voices in his head, Jonathon fears he is going crazy.

He has blue eyes, and village superstition claims that a "loony blue" will go insane by the time he becomes fourteen. Most of the experiences which worry him arise from his mixed parentage—his mother was halfDalriada, and the Dalriadas are thought by the family's neighbors to be not quite human. The images which come to Jonathon are visions of past events or significant places in the Red Mountains, the Dalriadas' home range. Some of Jonathon's physical symptoms, like the antler signs appearing on...