By Sydney Olivia
The first line of the blurb sets up the world of this debut novel:
exhilarating epic fantasy trilogy with a diverse cast, polyamory, and chaotic sentient magic
and I usually brush off blurbs, it’s all marketing after all. Further along it calls the the FMC a “girl boss take charge” character which had me wave off this book initially. Usually a book that tries to tick all the boxes manages to do very little with all that, and this is a debut novel, from a Gen Z writer no less. I had a rather bad experience with a book written by a young writer straight out of college who thought just a bit too highly of their literary skills.
But, for some reason I decided to give this book a chance and, boy howdy am I glad I did. The blurb promised a lot and the author delivers The storyline fits with any epic level fantasy; the story begins with the death of the current king and no heirs, so ascendency to the throne is in question. A kingdom built on exploitation and genocide of it’s native population, carried on by religious lies and yet, foreigners still trying to cross the borders because it’s not much better anywhere else. Sound familiar? Add to the mix that the wraiths, including our female protagonist are forced to servitude through magical bond to whomever is the king and under that geaes were responsible for the destruction of the original inhabitants. And who are the wraiths? They are magical beings kidnapped from other worlds to do the bidding of the king and his descendents. They are not cold beings, but used and angry and trapped. Meanwhile, there is Magic a sentient thing that travels between worlds, feeding on chaos until the world suffocates, although it can be reasoned with if one knows how. There are half gods, and impossible births, resurrected Tyrants with an army of undead, waiting for a new king to emerge from a set of trials that are wrapped around lies and deception stacked upon each other so the only way to win is to lose.
Does that sound like an absolute clusterfuck of a book? Absolutely and I was there for it every moment. Nothing is predictable, the story keeps changing and new characters appear and the protagonist has 3 love interests and 3 former loves that she still loves. Oh, it’s messy and there is no moral high ground for anyone in this story. There will be more than a few readers that will not like how much is crammed into the plot. I happen to love it and the author never loses her way. The reader is not dumped with information. Characters are both good and evil. If you believe violence is justified so you can relish in the killing of others, does it make you better or worse than the person whose very humanity is suffering over the violence they are forced to commit in order to maintain stability. There are lots of these moral questions posed but unfortunately no answers.
Beyond the complicated plot lines, the reader is introduced to a wide cast of characters that have deep emotional ties to each other. The main character has several love interests, both male and female although this is not a reverse Harem. In fact while romance / love plays a large part in the novel, it’s not trope laden with the usual Romantasy tropes. No enemies to lovers, no slow burn, although there isn’t any sex on page The main characters love and have loved each other, their ties are complicated.
All throughout the book the story is revealed as needed. I love that there is no info dump. We learn things then maybe we learn that it’s not quite what we thought initially. This isn’t about unreliable narration as we are never lied to as readers. We just don’t find out details until later, when other characters discover them, or when a character feels that it’s necessary to share them. It’s a fantastic way to build characters and story. I never got bored reading this book.
The representation of polymory and diversity is strong throughout the novel. The issue of colonialism and genocide and immigration are all weaved into the plot, with ‘darker skinned’ characters being both the backbone and the blame of civilization, but this is not presented as a ‘woke’ statement just as what happens in a society built on inequality. It’s clear our female protagonist and several of her fellow wraiths, found family and lovers are persons of colour – beyond tanned skin, it’s their hair, described in many ways – braided with wrapped ends, locs , curls tight to their head. It’s the culture from where our female protagonist was stolen from, which has a very african mythological feel to it’s stories and gods. Rather than slapping a label on a character, the characters appear to be built as PoC from their creation.
All in all, i’m excited to see where this series goes. For a first time outing the book is well done. I give it a 4.5 / 5.
