Arwen Elys Dayton Books In Order

Publication Order of Seeker Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Arwen Elys Dayton is an American novelist best known for writing the Seeker series of novels. Arwen has always desired to be a writer from as far back as she can remember. When she was about 8 years old, she wrote her first story, a science fiction saga about a prince from another galaxy that for the love of his kidnapped sister had to come to Earth where she was held. Dayton grew up in reading Asimov, Bradbury, Vonnegut, and Herbert and many other similar authors. She remembers reading Dune out loud to her parents when she was about 10. The novel has complex plots and themes such as competing religions, star system spanning politics, complex layers of society and an epic adventure. She also read a ton of historical fiction from the likes of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court and Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc both by Mark Twain, to Mary Renault’s The King Must Die. The King Must Die is more of historical fiction as it includes aspects of prophecy, romance, battles, gods brought to life, and myths made real, which probably explains Arwen’s tendency towards historical fiction. Just before she went to college at Stanford, she got a job writing Magazine articles for PBS and script writing for the Eddie Files, a popular show that she thought was better training than what was on offer in college. Soon after, she was writing novels and screenplays the most prominent of which were Resurrection and Sovereign’s Hold, which became Amazon bestsellers in the UK and the US. In 2013, Columbia Pictures acquired the rights to the Seeker series of novels. The Mark Gordon Company known for the movies Source Code, Saving Private Ryan, and Speed will adapt the series to film.

Arwen Elys Dayton takes many different paths in doing the research for the novels. The research for the Seeker was particularly complex as it involved research on diverse topics such as royal murders in history, how swords are made, the early days of Hong Kong, the history of London Bridge among many other things. However, in a recent interview, Dayton asserted that visiting Hong Kong and Scotland was some of the most important research she did on the Seeker series. Imagining two of the most fascinating yet totally opposite cultures gives the novels a feel of a clash of cultures. Hong Kong represents the ever changing and Modern as contrasted with the timeless and ancient Scotland. Scotland just looks and feels the same way it has felt for the past 500 years while Hong Kong has a futuristic look and feel that seems to promise that it will change and change again in the next 50 years. Walking through the settings of her characters makes it easy to write about them as if she is living in their world for a time. Nonetheless, even as Dayton asserts that she derives most of her characters and their experiences from those of close friends in real life, they are not conscious narratives of real life happenings.

Arwen Elys Dayton Seeker series follows the life of Quin Kincaid a young woman who is confronted with a terrifying truth. The fifteen year old who has been trained as a protector of the oppressed and the weak, discovers that her trainers intended the exact opposite. The Seekers are teens that have lived in isolation in the Scottish countryside for most of their lives while undertaking some of the most brutal of training. Like their family members, they are to use their secret knowledge and training to make the world a better place, by protecting the oppressed and the weak. For the trainees, the Seeker historical equivalent would be the Knights Templars, warriors that were committed to justice and morality. From their early childhood, they are told of legends of Seekers, which fought and freed people from the yoke of tyrant kings and rulers and did much good for their societies. They believe they are on a similar path of helping their societies.

Seeker the first novel of the Seeker series opens with Kincaid Quin taking her oath to become a seeker, a role that she has been training to take on for most of her fifteen years of life. Being a seeker will now be her life, an honor, and legacy. Her two closest companions on her new life as a Seeker charged with protecting the wronged and the weak, will be John and Shinobu. As a team they will stand together to bring light to a world full of shadows. Another thing that makes the night so special is that she will get to be with the boy she deems her soul mate and best friend, John. But once she has taken the oath, she discovers that everything that she had been told about being a Seeker was a lie. Too late to walk away from it all, she has learnt that her family and the boy she intended to give her heart are not who they pretended to be.

In Traveler, the second novel of the Seeker series Quin Kincaid the Seeker is still looking for answers to the deception that had been played on her for the best part of her life. With her life pledged to deception and savagery, her skills, as an assassin is all she has left to try to get back her life. The plot thickens when the boy she once thought she was in love with embarks on a mission for vengeance targeted at her family. The only person she has left on her side is her oldest companion, Shinobu, who is just as desperate for answers as she is. However, the deeper they try to unravel the mysteries of the past, the more tangled and dark the labyrinth seems to be. The deception is composed of a long line of shadowy alliances and long vanished Seeker families. But the biggest threat of all is a sinister plan that was conceived several thousand years ago, that altered and corrupted the legacy and path of the seeker making them the tool of the elite determined to stamp out the voice of the weak and oppressed.