This is one of those books that I've had for...years with little to no recollection of why, exactly, but I figured that now was the time to read it because why not.
It's set in a vaguely medieval world were sorcery and conjuring still happen, but most of the strength and lore of their magic has been lost. Our POV character is Lyon, who had been a sorcerer but then his former teacher got possessed by a wraith and then it spent months attempting to possess Lyon, until he burned off the brand on his wrist and managed to kill his teacher and the wraith in a massive fire. Fifteen years later, he's a translator and hermit who still suffers from nightmares and can't deal with being around too many people, living in a small village far away from everything. And our story begins when his closest childhood friend Tobin is sent to the village by the king to fetch this master translator on an urgent matter and discovers that Lyon is still alive.
After a bit of back and forth, Tobin manages to convince Lyon to come back with him, and the rest of the story is one part trauma recovery as Lyon attempts to reintegrate into the world and one part 'you need to do this magic thing to save the entire kingdom.' Lyon is absolutely deadset against ever communicating with something that isn't living again, after his experience with the wraith, and so when it turns out that the kingdom's survival depends upon mind-linking with a ghost, it becomes obvious to the reader far before it does to the characters that Lyon is going to overcome this trauma in order to save the world. Which is all fine, but there's not much tension or suspense there.
The same is true for Lyon and Tobin. They confirm that both of them are gay within the first chapter of their reunion, and for the rest of the book the only tension between them is whether Lyon will sufficiently recover from his trauma in order to be able to fully love, etc. But there's never any question that he will, because Tobin as a character is so grateful to have him back at all that whatever level of recovery Lyon reaches, Tobin will be happy to meet him there. Which on the one hand is lovely! Recovering from trauma doesn't mean suddenly behaving the way you did prior to the trauma again! But from a narrative standpoint it meant that there's very little there in the way of conflict within the main relationship of the book.
All in all, I found this story a very readable one, and I did want to know how it would get to the ending that was never in doubt, but it wasn't quite developed enough as either a fantasy book or as a romance, for me.
Grade: B
It's set in a vaguely medieval world were sorcery and conjuring still happen, but most of the strength and lore of their magic has been lost. Our POV character is Lyon, who had been a sorcerer but then his former teacher got possessed by a wraith and then it spent months attempting to possess Lyon, until he burned off the brand on his wrist and managed to kill his teacher and the wraith in a massive fire. Fifteen years later, he's a translator and hermit who still suffers from nightmares and can't deal with being around too many people, living in a small village far away from everything. And our story begins when his closest childhood friend Tobin is sent to the village by the king to fetch this master translator on an urgent matter and discovers that Lyon is still alive.
After a bit of back and forth, Tobin manages to convince Lyon to come back with him, and the rest of the story is one part trauma recovery as Lyon attempts to reintegrate into the world and one part 'you need to do this magic thing to save the entire kingdom.' Lyon is absolutely deadset against ever communicating with something that isn't living again, after his experience with the wraith, and so when it turns out that the kingdom's survival depends upon mind-linking with a ghost, it becomes obvious to the reader far before it does to the characters that Lyon is going to overcome this trauma in order to save the world. Which is all fine, but there's not much tension or suspense there.
The same is true for Lyon and Tobin. They confirm that both of them are gay within the first chapter of their reunion, and for the rest of the book the only tension between them is whether Lyon will sufficiently recover from his trauma in order to be able to fully love, etc. But there's never any question that he will, because Tobin as a character is so grateful to have him back at all that whatever level of recovery Lyon reaches, Tobin will be happy to meet him there. Which on the one hand is lovely! Recovering from trauma doesn't mean suddenly behaving the way you did prior to the trauma again! But from a narrative standpoint it meant that there's very little there in the way of conflict within the main relationship of the book.
All in all, I found this story a very readable one, and I did want to know how it would get to the ending that was never in doubt, but it wasn't quite developed enough as either a fantasy book or as a romance, for me.
Grade: B
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