I gave this book three stars but it should really be a 3,5!
"The Summoner" is the first book of the Chronicles of the Necromancer and introduces to the world of Matris Drayke (Tris), prince of Margolan and his family. Tris has always been able to communicate with ghosts and could always see them hang around all over the palace. At the day of the Feast of the Departed the ghosts are usually even more visible even to the other people but this year there seemed to be very few of them around. When a ghost warns Tris about the Soulcatcher and an old ghost crone tells Tris and his friends their future Tris can´t shake off of feeling of dread but nothing seems to be out of place. But when he witnesses his older brother Jared kill their father and the rest of the family to become king himself his own life is suddenly in danger too and he barely escapes with his friends. Tris is sure that Jared´s evil chief advisor Foor Arontala is the driving force behind Jared and decides to flee to his uncle´s kingdom for help against the out of control Jared...
There´s when the real adventure starts! On their way to Tris´uncle Tris and his companions commit the mercenary Jonmarc Vahanain as a guide and they meet princess Kiara who is on a quest to find a cure for her ill father and help for her country against Jared. They have to overcome many dangerous situations but when I´m honest I never wrung my hands in distress because I feared for the life of our main characters. The plot was sometimes very predictable in my opinion but there were many good ideas and concepts and I liked the world the author created. But I would have enjoyed looking at the map at the beginning of the book more when I wouldn´t have needed a loupe to identify the places...
All in all this book wasn´t as thrilling as I thought it to be but the story is told fluently and I was never bored reading it but I wasn´t overly excited too. It´s a nice read if you like fantasy books with all the common elements of this genre and I will of course read the next installment to satisfy my curiosity what will happen next.

Website of the author: http://www.chroniclesofthenecromancer...

Addition: you can find a better to read map at the author´s website