“She couldn’t fix herself anymore, and no one else seemed inclined to even notice she was breaking.”
I had to listen to the book that everyone has been raving about for months. 📚✨ I knew it was a long one, and I had way more listening time than reading time, so I requested it on Libby, waited my turn, and jumped in a couple of weeks ago. 🎧
It’s written in three parts — present, past, and present again, ⏳ — and while I didn’t enjoy the past bit as much, it did explain why everything was happening, and it made things make sense.
The story is pretty dark in a lot of places 🌑⚡ and more than once I had to stop and think, “wtf did I just listen to?!!!”😳 I got confused about the different “mancers” — necromancer, vivimancer, etc. — and what their abilities were. In the end, I gave up and just went with the story. I still couldn’t tell you which characters were alive or dead. 💀🫠
That being said, I enjoyed it, 👍 I just didn’t delve too deeply into the reasoning behind the war, the murders, and the secrets. I listened, I gasped, 😱 I was shocked and fascinated.
If you read this, you’ll fit into one of three camps: you’ll obsess over it, 🤯📖 you’ll think it was a good read, or you’ll hate it. 🚫 Let me know what you thought. 💬
Would I read anything else by this author? Yes, probably — but I wouldn’t be at the front of the queue at the bookstore. 🏃♀️📚
“What is it you think you’re protecting in that brain of yours? The war is over. Holdfast is dead. The Eternal Flame extinguished. There’s no one left for you to save.”
Once a promising alchemist, Helena Marino is now a prisoner—of war and of her own mind. Her Resistance friends and allies have been brutally murdered, her abilities suppressed, and the world she knew destroyed.
In the aftermath of a long war, Paladia’s new ruling class of corrupt guild families and depraved necromancers, whose vile undead creatures helped bring about their victory, holds Helena captive.
According to Resistance records, she was a healer of little importance within their ranks. But Helena has inexplicable memory loss of the months leading up to her capture, making her enemies wonder: Is she truly as insignificant as she appears, or are her lost memories hiding some vital piece of the Resistance’s final gambit?
To uncover the memories buried deep within her mind, Helena is sent to the High Reeve, one of the most powerful and ruthless necromancers in this new world. Trapped on his crumbling estate, Helena’s fight—to protect her lost history and to preserve the last remaining shreds of her former self—is just beginning. For her prison and captor have secrets of their own . . . secrets Helena must unearth, whatever the cost.
About SenLinYu
SenLinYu (she/they) grew up in the Pacific Northwest and studied classical liberal arts and culture. They started writing in the Notes app of their phone during their baby’s nap time. Their collected online works have garnered over twenty million individual downloads and have been translated into twenty-three languages. They live in Portland with their family. ALCHEMISED is their first novel.
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