Nothing is more important than loyalty.
But what if you’ve sworn to protect the one you were born to destroy?

Tarisai has always longed for the warmth of a family. She was raised in isolation by a mysterious, often absent mother known only as The Lady. The Lady sends her to the capital of the global empire of Aritsar to compete with other children to be chosen as one of the Crown Prince’s Council of 11. If she’s picked, she’ll be joined with the other Council members through the Ray, a bond deeper than blood. That closeness is irresistible to Tarisai, who has always wanted to belong somewhere. But The Lady has other ideas, including a magical wish that Tarisai is compelled to obey: Kill the Crown Prince once she gains his trust. Tarisai won’t stand by and become someone’s pawn—but is she strong enough to choose a different path for herself?

I picked Raybearer up because of the gorgeous cover and I loved Jordan Ifueko’s AMA on r/fantasy during our virtual con. I ended up loving the book and I’m so glad there will be a sequel because I need to spend more time in this beautiful world.

Raybearer is a YA fantasy set in a secondary world, where there’s a huge empire occupying an entire continent and made up of 12 nations. There’s an interesting mythic backstory about how that came to pass. I really liked how it flips what I’m used to from most euro-centric fantasy, because the central main nations are inspired by African cultures, and one by Central or South America and another one by India, and then the nations inspired by European countries are remote and far away. I only wish I had more knowledge of the cultures Ifueko draws on so I could picture everything better in my head (I’ve never been able to put a book down long enough to google while stuff was going down) but even without background knowledge, the imagery was vivid and beautiful. I loved the focus on local dress and traditions and how one of the themes of the book is hanging on to cultural identity in such a big diverse empire, in the face of fear and attempts at erasure.

There are different kinds of magic in this world, we get glimpses of the Underworld, home of dangerous Abiku – spirits of death. We also learn about alagbato, benevolent natural spirits. People can be born with various magical gifts, some small, some powerful. And there are also great feats of magic from hundreds of years ago that influence life and politics to this day.

The main character is Tarisai, a young girl who has not had a happy childhood and is starved of human contact, acceptance, and affection. When she got to be part of a group and make friends her story reminded of Talia’s from Heralds of Valdemar by Mercedes Lackey, except here, because we know a dark secret from the start,  all her newfound joy and friendship always has an ominous undercurrent. Something I really liked about her is how strong-willed she is, always looking for ways to not give in. I thought she was a well-written teen, she’s got a very realistic mix of skill, wisdom, and childish nativity.

There are two main groups of characters, the kids (teens, young people, I’m old) and the adults, and the great part was that both groups had interesting and developed characters. There was a strong case of hidden reasons and secrets going around, and tagging along as the protagonist unravels layers of secrets is one of my favorite things. There’s a tight focus on a few in Tarisai’s circle of friends that we get to know really well and that were great in how they paid attention and supported each other, and how they dealt with their conflicts. Found family is one of the main themes of the book and I liked how it wasn’t at all just easy and streamlined. Her mother is also really interesting, on the one hand, she’s distant and engages in gaslighting, but the more we learn about her story the easier it is to see her motives as reasonable, if not her methods.

I enjoyed the story a lot, it’s a lot more focussed on personal relationships than action, but there are also some very epic scenes. A lot of the book is set in contained spaces, a house, a palace, another palace, which is where most of the growing together takes place, Tarisai and the others going from kids of 6-7 years old to young adults. These are balanced out by a few parts where we get to see more of the empire, and those are when the plot moves from just Tarisai’s story to figuring out some history and realizing how everything ties in together. The pacing kept me hooked all the way through, and it ended up being a very quick read. A few times I thought, oh sure, now X is gonna happen, but nope, Ifueko went for something different.

I’d like to circle back a bit to the gorgeous cover, I’m so glad I got this one in print because the hardcover is so lovely.

Goodreads link

r/fantasy bingo: Optimistic, Ace / Aro, Novel Published in 2020 H, A Book that Made You Laugh, Featuring Politics

BLM book bingo: MAGICIAN: set in a secondary world, HIEROPHANT: coming of age or YA contemporary, SUN: optimistic, hopepunk book, MISFIT: featuring found family, LOVERS: featuring strong friendships or romance, DEATH: book published after 7/1/2020, EMPRESS: mother MC or mother-child relationship.