Black Stone Heart by Stas Borodin

Michael R. Fletcher is a Canadian writer whose first novel, 88, was published by Five Rivers Publishing, a small Canadian press. His short fiction can be found in Interzone, On Spec, Daily Science Fiction, Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, and Arcane. This novel grew out of his desire to write something outside of the normal tropes of fantasy, and his contemplation of rare mental disorders (like Cotard's Syndrome) in a fantasy context.