Toxic mother-daughter relationships are uncommon in fantasy. All too often, mothers are already dead on page one, or if Mama lives, she’s warm and nurturing. Even Cersei Lannister dotes on her children, and many—if not most—of her evil deeds are motivated by a mother’s love.
In the Coraidic Sagas, the mothers are not so nice, and the trilogy is rooted in a legacy of neglect and abuse. One mother’s disregard for her daughter’s pain plants seeds of revenge, which sprout into a poisonous violence that soon infests a continent.
The storytelling is one of the best things about the series. In Blood of Heirs (the Fantasy-Faction finalist in SPFBO5), our understanding of events is limited to the perspectives of twelve-year-old Lidan and fourteen-year-old Ranoth. Although they reside in different countries, they both must fend off attacks from bloodthirsty zombies while confronting coming-of-age challenges. In Legacy of Ghosts, a young adult Lidan and Ran begin to unravel the origin of the zombies while facing a broader set of romantic, political, and personal struggles. Finally in Empire of Shadows, the pair team up to end the undead scourge.
The slowly expanding scope of the story is vaguely reminiscent of Harry Potter. There are no magical schools, cliques and hijinks, or adults in funny hats, but there is a Big Threat, and the reader’s understanding of the BT evolves as Lidan and Ran mature and gain a more sophisticated worldview. The BT itself evolves too—at first, we think it’s the zombies, then their creator, but the scope of the danger extends well beyond what we think we know. The origins of all the trouble are also both bigger and smaller than the usual beginning of such things. On the one hand, deities are involved. On the other, the inciting incident is a horrific but all too common occurrence in both Coraidin and the real world.
Realism is one of Wanstall-Burke’s strengths. From fights to characters to the ordinary, everyday bits, her work is grounded and relatable. Characters and their relationships are complicated and full of nuance. Even minor characters are fleshed out and three dimensional, and the bonds of love, especially the frayed ones, feel true. The author’s utilitarian prose in the first two books never got in the way of the realism of her characters or their story. In Empire of Shadows, Wanstall-Burke stretches her writing wings, giving us more poetic and vivid descriptions of landscapes, events, and feelings. I admired the effort overall, but some of the author’s compositional choices didn’t work for me and I missed the immersion I’d felt in the previous two books.
I also missed having more time with Lidan and Ran as they navigated the increasingly complex personal and political landscapes of Empire of Shadows. The cast expanded along with the narrative scope in book three, and although I generally enjoyed the broader set of viewpoints, I would have liked to have seen more page time spent with Ran, especially. I felt like he was demoted to more of a supporting role, when he’d previously been a costar with Lidan. His ongoing struggles to master his magic and his fraught relationships with his love and also with a new mentor were important plot-related elements that were not explored as deeply as I thought they deserved.
On the other hand, the chapters featuring Lidan’s mother were hard to put down. Sellan is responsible for a lot of the troubles plaguing Coraidin, and I relished seeing her side of the story. In the first two books, she’s mostly heartless, cruel, and hateful, yet there are glimpses of a woman who does care for her children and will do anything to protect them. In book three we get to embrace that person. Sellan has no illusions about her flaws as a parent or a human being, but she does want Lidan to thrive in life. Sellan’s backstory and the complex relationship she has with her own parents help make her more sympathetic, and while she remains selfishly focused on her objective and heedless of any collateral damage, she’s much easier to root for than, say, doting mother Circe Lannister. Circe may pretend she’s acting in her children’s interests, but really she’s a self-deluded narcissist who believes her evil is good and has no regrets. Sellan sees the wrong in her choices, but she can’t help but move forward on a path laid out decades earlier.
Sellan is a magnificent antihero, one who stands at the nexus of a beautifully crafted intergenerational conflict, and her actions bring on a climax consisting of rapid-fire gut punches. The end had me reaching for the tissues even a few days after I finished the book. All in all, Empire of Shadows is a terrific conclusion to Lidan’s and Ran’s stories, and there are plenty of hints that more trouble is brewing in the world of Coraidin. I’ll certainly grab my copy whenever the next Coraidic Saga volume appears.
Julia Kitvaria Sarene