Servant Mage

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

New York Times Bestselling author Kate Elliott brings us another wonderful fantasy novel filled with rich world-building and a vibrant female main character we can love. Servant Mage is filled with twists and turns, drama, and conspiracy. With stunning cover art and a captivating tale, what’s not to love?

After watching her parents executed for sedition, Fellian is taken from her family and sent to an asylum to be trained as a servant mage, forced into slavery because of her ability to create Lamps with magic. Years later, while indentured to an inn, she is stolen by a group of rebel Monarchists who believe her seditionist background puts her firmly on their side against the Liberationists who currently rule.

They promise coin for her aid rescuing refugees trapped in the dark of the mines up north. If they survive this mission, they swear she will walk away with money and the freedom to go wherever she wishes without interference. Knowing they face certain death if they’re caught, Fellian also asks for a travel license and identity papers. Their destination brings her close to home, and she dares to hope she can return and find her grandmother still alive.

Her captors are not only Monarchists, but they are each a branch of the outlawed five-arrow quiver: air, earth, water, and aether, and now they had her fire. Combined together they could locate dragon-born children, the bane of the Liberationists. When an earthquake announces the birth of such a child, the group’s priorities change, and Fellian gets pulled even deeper into political intrigue and danger as their path turns away from the north and home, and toward the unknown.

Through it all, Fellian remains strong willed and outspoken, sticking up for herself and those she cares about, asking questions, and refusing to be cowed. Everyone makes assumptions about her based on her clothing, her looks, and her background, but they never ask what she wants or how she feels, and she keeps her motivations close, always ready to save herself, always weighing her options. She’s an excellent role model. I can’t wait to see what she does next; assuming there are future books.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Visit the author’s website and follow her on Twitter.

Advance Reading Copy provided by Tor/Forge via Netgalley at my request.