The Wheel that Turns the Stars — Ross McDonald

Jason Hood, a baker's apprentice from the quiet town of Fairhope, is persuaded to abandon a comfortable existence by Vincent Griffin, a promethean orphan who dreams that he will die on his eighteenth birthday unless he undertakes a great journey to discover the fabled Phoenix.Along the way they are joined by Sarah Mitchell, a hermean with a dazzling hidden power, Alexander Marco, a yeoman militia captain with a secret past, and the angels Euryalus and Shuri, lost mariners from a mysterious other world.Their sweeping journey takes them from streets of Carrock to the fjords and mountains of Storvik to the ancient palaces and canals of Heneth, encountering along the way battles both epic and personal.Echoing the real history of our own world at the turn of the nineteenth century, the Wheel that Turns the Stars is an exciting new take on the Epic Fantasy genre, set in an age of sail, muskets and Enlightenment.