Book Review | The Obsidian Tower

I have added this beginning to this book review for The Obsidian Tower before I published it, because I won’t stay silent on this issue. Black people still need our help and support, you can get all the information you need on this website https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/ There are also plenty of petitions based on making changes in the UK if you want to support those too.

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The mage-marked granddaughter of a ruler of Vaskandar, Ryx was destined for power and prestige at the top of Vaskandran society. But her magic is broken; all she can do is uncontrollably drain the life from everything she touches, and Vaskandar has no place for a mage with unusable powers. Then, one night, two terrible accidents befall her: Ryx accidentally kills a visiting dignitary in self-defense, activating a mysterious magical artifact sealed in an ancient tower in the heart of her family’s castle. Ryx flees, seeking a solution to her deadly magic. She falls in with a group of unlikely magical experts investigating the disturbance in Vaskandar—and Ryx realizes that her family is in danger and her domain is at stake. She and her new colleagues must return to the family stronghold to take control of the artifact that everyone wants to claim—before it destroys the world. -Goodreads

My thanks to Orbit book for the digital review copy of this novel.

I really really loved this book! If you follow me on Twitter you will probably already know this, but this book was amazing. That being said it only gets 4.5 as opposed to 5 simply because the beginning of the novel was a wee bit slow, it took a little while to actually get going. The novel has a lot to do with the politics of the world, and draws heavily on these political themes, which understandably takes some time to set up and fully explain.

This novel follows Ryx, who is the warden of her Grandmother’s Castle, and has the power to kill living things with her touch. Grass dies when she stands on it, a butterfly or midge which lands on her will be killed. Their castle guards a giant tower, and when one of the visiting dignitaries breaks the wards surrounding it and enters the tower, all hell breaks loose.

I really enjoyed the political aspects of this novel, our main character Ryx is trying to conduct peace talks with a number of dignitaries, and these are well written and very well explained by the author. They definitely add to my liking of Ryx, her exasperation and anger with the futility of the peace talks, and her annoyance at everyone’s petty arguments made me love her even more!

This novel also has the found family trope that I love oh so much. Ryx joins with a group of experts that travel around fixing/investigating magical incidents, who appear to investigate the tower. The characters in this group are perfect! They have all the winning banter and care for each other that makes me love this trope, and they welcome their new additions with open arms.

I also want to draw attention to the excellent LGBTQ+ representation this novel features. Ryx is bisexual, she has feeling for both male and females in this novel. There is also a secondary character who is non-binary and uses they pronouns, and there is a female-female romance between two secondary characters.

Overall I loved this book! It is such an excellent exciting beginning to a new high fantasy series, and I cannot wait for book 2!!

Thank you for reading my book review for The Obsidian Tower.

You can buy the book from Waterstones here

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