Debut Review: LODESTONE by Katherine Forrister
Those that love dark fantasy should read this stand-out gem from the indie presses. LODESTONE by debut author Katherine Forrister begins with lodestone-peddlar Melaine in a re-imagined Medieval Age commonly found in the fantasy genre. As an orphan, Melaine has survived all of her twenty-one years in the slums of Stakeside by using her rare ability to create lodestones. Magic is biological in nature, sourced from the marrow in one’s bones. Melaine can summon this magic and solidify it into diamond-shaped crystals imbibed with her raw lifeforce.
After watching too many of the forsaken fall victim to the perils of the slums, Melanie is determined to improve her lot. She trades six lodestones for a rare audience with the Overlord, the fearsome ruler of Centara. He has retreated to the near-abandoned Highstrong Keep, ancient and haunted by its history. After Melanie clears the gates, a riveting fairytale unfolds with a transformation curse, demonic possession, white-magic phantom, and a library with cabinets full of Insights, or organic matter used as conduits for spells. Insights are where the author gets to showcase her creativity, as in the description of an Insight containing a speed spell that “looked like a gilded horse’s tail with a knot at the top, each hair coated in real gold. She brushed the wand through the tail; the long strands rattled like ice-covered willow branches.”
The Overlord is nothing like Melaine imagined—not as a ruler or a man. Melaine becomes his apprentice and strengthens her powers. Under cover of darkness, she works to uncover the secrets of both the Overlord and Highstrong Keep in order to stop a gruesome evil that grows stronger as it feeds. For the first time in Melaine’s life, there is far more at stake than saving her own skin. There is the fate of every man, woman, and child—and the one she desperately loves.
Many thanks to the author and GenZ for providing an ARC in an author swap.
Purple rock candy was a must.