It’s been a year since Esther set foot in the Beyond, the alien landscape stretching between worlds, crossing boundaries of space and time. She and her magical travelling party, her Hex, haven’t spoken since the Concilium banned them from the Beyond. But when she wakes in the middle of the night to her son’s cry for help, the members of her Hex are the only ones she can trust to help her bring him back from wherever he has been taken.
Esther will have to risk everything to find him. Undercover and hidden from the Concilium, she and her Hex will be tested by dragon lords, a darkness so dense it can suffocate, and the bones of an old crime come back to haunt her.
Badass mom to the rescue! Kate Elliott's The Keeper's Six is an adventure-filled, action-packed novella that features a 60-years-old protagonist, something we don't ever see much of. Esther is an excellent protagonist, experienced and shrewd despite her aches and pains; it was a delight to watch her talk circles around everyone, gleaning information about her son's whereabouts with her negotiation skills and finally finding the truth. I also loved to see her Jewish faith deftly incorporated in the narrative.
This was really a well-rounded novella. In a short amount of pages, Elliott depicts her world and makes you really understand everything of its complexity; the explanations never feel like info-dumps, although having a character who conveniently needs everything explained by the protagonist certainly helps; but those conversations never feel forced. The character in question is fascinating, his past much more so, and in general this story is really organic when it explores the team's past: you get the sense that you really know the members of Esther's Hex, masterfully sketched out in a few words and dialogues.
This is a mix of sci-fi and fantasy; we start off in modern day Australia and make our way to the in-between. I hesitate to call this portal fantasy because it's implied that the dragons used some technology to make the Keeps, more than magic, although magic is certainly used throughout the story. The dragons are fascinating, especially our big bad, and the central mystery slowly unraveling itself, teased ever since the beginning, is worth the wait.
Taking center stage of the narrative is a beautiful established queer relationship between a human man and a non-binary dragon, who met under less than ideal circumstances; the dragon, Kai, has a horrific past that catches up with them and threatens their happiness.
The Keeper's Six is a delightful action-packed adventure that finishes too soon.
✨ 4 stars
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