Though not embroidery, the magnificently woven medieval tapestries making up the set known as The Unicorn Tapestries, provide a wonderful vehicle for this richly imaginative work of fiction.

No one knows for whom the Tapestries were made or what they mean or represent, but the symbology and settings certainly provided fertile ground for an inventive and enterprising author.

Chris Humphreys has written 21 books, is well known as an actor and playwright, and also finds time to narrate audiobooks.  He has an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia, where he lives on a small island.  He also wears a family heirloom, a Unicorn ring…

The Hunt of the Unicorn is the first in a trilogy of spellbinding novels where the main characters are a 15-year-old girl from New York and a Unicorn – separated in time by portals secretly woven into one of two The Unicorn Tapestries.

Each of the tapestries has the letters AE woven into them and the 15-year-old Alice Elayne is a descendant of the original Alice Elayne who long ago made a promise to a Unicorn named Moonspill.

Unicorns have mythical powers of healing and cleansing, and from the land of Goloth, Land of the Fabulous Beast, Moonspill calls to New York and Alice Elayne for help.  But she needs help too.  Can they work together?

Fast-paced, exciting, and touching this novel traverses two totally different worlds, yet Alice Elayne and Moonspill find power in each other.  The characters are immensely believable and work well with the imagined stories so richly represented in the Tapestries.

An immersing read for lovers of fantasy fiction or history, woven or embroidered.

Chris Humphreys certainly had me hooked and Moonspill and those Tapestries will live in my heart for a long time to come.

Chris’s Author’s Note at the end of the book is enlightening and well worth reading too.

The Hunt of the Unicorn is available on Kindle and was originally published in 2011 by Library and Archives Canada.