“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.

I purchased a copy of this book for my own reading.

I know they say don’t judge a book by its cover, but that is precisely what I did with this one. I saw it on the shelf in my local supermarket just before Christmas, and the cover caught my attention. It’s dark, gothic vibes drew me in, and the singular splash of red made for an intriguing cover.

I went into it unsure what to expect. I knew it came from a Harry Potter-inspired fan fiction, and that is clear throughout the book. I had also seen that there were elements of romantasy throughout, with some implication that it’s a full-on romantasy novel. This worried me a touch as I’m really not a fan of this genre.

I need not have worried, though. There was a romance element, though I’d caution anyone that it is very dark. I really enjoyed this read. The parallels to Harry Potter are clear enough to anyone who knows the series. The romance is so much darker than I imagined, and should really carry a warning, such is the nature of it. But the stories of war, alchemy and necromancy overrode those elements for me and made for a dark, tense read.

My rating: