Review: The Sovereign, by C.L. Clark

 

Luca is the new queen of Balladaire. Her empire is already splintering in her hands. Her uncle wasn’t the only traitor in the court, and the Withering will decimate her people if she can’t unearth Balladaire’s magic. The only person who can help her wants the only thing Luca won’t give—the end of the monarchy.
Touraine is Luca’s general. She has everything she ever wanted. While Luca looks within Balladaire’s borders, Touraine looks outward—the alliance with Qazal is brittle and Balladaire’s neighbors are ready to pounce on its new weakness. When the army comes, led by none other than Touraine’s old lover, Touraine must face the truth about herself—and the empire she once called home. 

"Trust is a choice." 

C.L. Clark's The Sovereign is the excellent conclusion to the Magic of the Lost series (HERE's my review of the second book), a vividly painted tale of love and betrayal that reckons with issues of colonialism and imperialism in a lush world filled with lost magic. Touraine and Luca must reckon with their choices and with their respective duties - to their lands, to their families, to their loves. It's a strong novel, filled with impossible choices, heartbreaking and brutal, but love permeates every step of the way.

The character work is exquisite. The love between Touraine and Luca never wawers, but it's put to the test more than once. As their world comes crumbling down with magical desease, war, and revolution, they stay at the center, dealing with the crisis while trying to navigate their relationship and what it means for their lives and their goals. The tension works because they are often at odds with each other, and the complex duties and loyalties make this book shine. The book careens towards a quiet ending after a mad roller coaster of emotions, and it feels inevitable and perfect.

It's a book filled with loss and grief. With so many characters and a war looming, it doesn't feel like a spoiler to say that not everyone comes out unscathed. And every character has their moment to shine; from the deadly courtesan Sabine, to Touraine's previous lover, to the girl that will end up a symbol of the revolution, every character is lovingly rendered and perfectly understandable in their motivations. Others, old and new, are not mere faces, but each of them expertly written.

The worldbuilding expands, exploring another conquered land, its people and their magic; and Touraine's own people and magic, and Luca's Empire and its lost magic. The book manages to give answers and new questions and paint a well-contained secondary world, maybe not especially creative but expertly crafted.

The Sovereign is an incredible conclusion.

✨ 5 stars

 

Review: Don't Sleep with the Dead, by Nghi Vo

 

Nick Carraway―paper soldier and novelist―has found a life and a living watching the mad magical spectacle of New York high society in the late thirties. He's good at watching, and he's even better at pretending: pretending to be straight, pretending to be human, pretending he's forgotten the events of that summer in 1922.
On the eve of the second World War, however, Nick learns that someone's been watching him pretend and that memory goes both ways. When he sees a familiar face at a club one night, it quickly becomes clear that dead or not, damned or not, Jay Gatsby isn't done with him. In all paper there is memory, and Nick's ghost has come home.

"A heart of paper or a heart made from hungry gears." 

Nghi Vo's Don't Sleep with the Dead  is a companion and sequel to the author's 2021 Great Gatsby retelling The Chosen and the Beautiful. As such, it doesn't really work on its own, but needs knowledge of the retelling, more than of the original novel, in order to make some sense. It's a very atmospheric piece of writing, a kind of horror story with a magical realism feel.

Nick Carraway, who spent the first book pining for Gatsby, still can't stop thinking about him twenty years after his death. The novella deals beautifully with queer longing and abusive relationships while exploring more of Nick's past and present. Drawing from the happenings of real history, this story creates a multifaceted narrative that works well enough.

The novella brims with a kind of restless energy, following Nick as he tries to track down Gatsby's dead essence, dealing with cruel devils and the homophobia of the time. The ending stuns with its casual cruelty and the culmination of queer desire.

Don't Sleep with the Dead is a quiet companion work.

✨ 3.5 stars

 

Review: Fate's Bane, by C.L. Clark

 

The clans of the fens enjoy a tenuous peace, and it is all thanks to Agnir, ward and hostage. For as long as she can remember she has lived among the enemy, learning their ways, growing strong alongside their children. When a burgeoning love for the chieftain’s daughter lures them both to a hidden spring, a magic awakens in them that could bind the clans under one banner at last—or destroy any hope of peace. By working their intentions into leather, they can weave misfortune for their enemies… just like the Fate’s Bane that haunts the legends of the clans.
Ambitions grow in their fathers’ hearts, grudges threaten a return to violence, and greedy enemies wait outside the borders, seeking a foothold to claim the fens for themselves. And though their Makings may save their families, the legend that gave them this power always exacts its price.

"Symbol as I was, I was powerless." 

C.L. Clark's Fate's Bane  is a complex tragedy woven with a lyrical, stunning prose. This compact novella details the tragic love between a hostage and the daughter of her captor, as the years go by and their clans keep warring. With evocative turns of phrase, feeling like a folk tale, this heartbreaking sapphic tale explores the cycle of violence and the cycle of stories, exploring queer longing and the insanity of war.

Told entirely from the perspective of the hostage, this novella breezes through years and years of development, but nothing feels rushed; every word is precise and evocative, especially when it describes the eerie spring that might have doomed or blessed them. Their love starts slow, and burns bright, and it might be the only thing that can save them. But nothing is certain, and in that nebulous unclarity lies the real beauty of this story.

This short masterpiece is perhaps not for everyone, with its soft edges of a story narrated around a campfire, a clan story, a tragedy in the making; but its beauty compels and hurts. Its magic is not the loud magic of high fantasy, but a quieter, uncanny thing, like something straight out of Faerie.

Fate's Bane is a stunning novella.

✨ 5 stars

 

Review: To Clutch a Razor, by Veronica Roth

 

A funeral. A heist. A desperate mission. When Dymitr is called back to the old country for the empty night, a funeral rite intended to keep evil at bay, it's the perfect opportunity for him to get his hands on his family's most guarded relic—a book of curses that could satisfy the debt he owes legendary witch Baba Jaga. But first he'll have to survive a night with his dangerous, monster-hunting kin.
As the sun sets, the line between enemies and allies becomes razor-thin, and Dymitr’s new loyalties are pushed to their breaking point. Family gatherings can be brutal. Dymitr’s might just be fatal.

"I know they're monsters. But a man can love a monster." 

Veronica Roth's To Clurch a Razor is the extraordinary sequel to last year's When Among Crows (HERE you can find my review). A perfectly self-sustained novella, this powerful work deals with teams of grief and abuse. Every word is expertly woven, carefully calculated. We drown once more into Polish folklore as the main characters embark into a borderline suicidal mission in Europe, old wounds are split open, and a new understanding shines through the pain.

This is a compact, painful book, and the author doesn't hold anyone's hand as we bear stunned witness to horror. But there's hope in the luminous relationship between the trio, in the friendship between human and 'monster', in the love between owl and man. Niko and Dymitr are doomed, but only they can save each other; Dymitr can only find repentance in protecting Ala. It's a heartbreaking gem of a book.

The prose is exquisite, simple and cutting. The worldbuilding stuns, too, with its cruel simplicity, drawing from myths and old tales. Baba Yaga is cruel and gentle in equal measure. The ending wraps up everything perfectly, but like the first book, it leaves the door open; and I do hope the author will keep writing this stunning series.

To Clutch a Razor is a small masterpiece.

✨ 5 stars