Echoes and Empires

 

Written by Morgan Rhodes

Razorbill

978-0-593351659

400 pp.

Ages 12-18

2022 

Reviewed from audiobook (978-0-593502839)

Josslyn Drake has always led a privileged life as the First Daughter of the Regarian prime minister. Of course, things changed drastically when her father was assassinated by the warlock Lord Zarek Banyon at last year's Queen's Gala. Still, Queen Isadora, a close family friend, has allowed her to stay in the PM's residence, now home to Prime Minister Ambrose and Celina, his daughter and Joss's best friend, as well as providing Joss with a generous allowance.

But a year after her father's murder at the annual Queen's Gala, Joss's life is again turned around. First, she learns that Celina is now betrothed to Joss's own crush Viktor, a commander in the Queensguard. Then, when she goes to view the stolen artifacts retrieved from Banyon's residence, she interrupts the theft of an ornate box from which a golden smoke is released and enters Joss. The next day, the young thief, Jericho Nox, finds her and reveals that memory magic is now in Joss and he must get it back for his employer, the witch Valery. Having been indoctrinated to believe that all magic is evil and uncontrollable, and the source of all illness, violence and cruelty, Joss wants the magic out of her as much as Jericho wants to get it back. This is especially true because the memories Joss sees as echoes are those of her father's killer, Lord Banyon.

 

Still, getting the magic out of her becomes even more complicated after they are betrayed and imprisoned in the walled prison known as the Queen's Keep. So now, not only do they need to get the magic out of her and quickly, as Valery is causing Jericho much pain through the marks by which she has bonded him to her, but they must find a way out of the Keep, which only seems possible by making a dangerous deal with the Overlord, Vander Lazos, once magical advisor to the Queen and a former friend of Banyon's. But that deal requires Jericho, who possesses death magic, to destroy a creature that torments the Keep, and even that does not ensure their escape from the walled community or the removal of the magic from Joss.

Morgan Rhodes has created another complex fantasy of magic in which an unlikely pair of brash young people must work to together–and maybe fall in love–to get what they both want. Unfortunately, they are both at the dictates of those who have and will deceive them before they offer any assistance, and the two must rely on each other rather than those who have always appeared to be in their corners. Some readers may find seventeen-year-old Joss unlikable as the privileged child of the empire, accustomed to wealth and recognition, and typically showing contempt for those less than herself but with whom she must ally herself. Jericho, on the other hand, is just a hard shell of a young man of nineteen, having suffered numerous tragedies from the deaths of his parents and now bondage to a treacherous but powerful witch who chooses to use him as a tool of lawlessness. They are very different but still connected through a bit of magic and a whole lot of misadventure. 

But, beyond her wealth of characters, and Joss and Jericho are but the main ones, Morgan Rhodes gives us a new world of fantasy, in which magic is manipulated and cursed, in which secrets are used to control and protect, and affection is a commodity of both innocence and might. With each step of their mission to remove the magic from Joss and deliver it to Valery, the two teens grow and become more than they had been and more than they'd expected to be. From objects of compliance with social norms and their manipulators, Joss and Jericho start to see beyond that which is presented to them. They're starting to see the world as it truly is.

Everything Morgan Rhodes (a.k.a. Michelle Rowen for adult readers) writes is gold. She weaves characters and stories together into rich fabrics, complex with the depth of the connections of their plights and natures. She makes us laugh with their foibles and sarcasm, and has us cheering for them when they endure and even conquer. And she makes us swoon when the unlikeliest of characters find soulmates. Echoes and Empires delivers all that and more, and there will be many a reader, including this one, anticipating the sequel, Legends and Liars, which comes out in June.

 

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