ALCHEMISED by SenLinYu (BOOK REVIEW)
This book was a journey. Not least because it’s almost 1000 pages long. Despite all the hype on social media in the last couple of months, I’d never heard of this author and went into the book completely blind, based on the blurb alone. It looked interesting to me. Another fantasy book, right?
No. Very much No.
First off came the security. I wasn’t allowed to mention this book at all. My ARC was personalised and I had to confirm receipt with the publicist. This review has been embargoed. What on earth could be so important?
I saw the sheer size of the paperback – my goodness. How on earth would I finish this in time? This is akin to Stephen King’s The Stand – what if I didn’t like it? Everything about it screams EPIC. I admit, I was nervous going in!
I turned to the first page…
… and finished the last exactly one week later.
My life paused for this book. When I wasn’t reading, the atmosphere held onto me with an inescapable grip, requiring me to return to this world as soon as I could. Real Life Commitments could wait, as I had to know what would happen next.
I’m not exaggerating. I quickly realized that this is one of my Books of the Year, without a doubt.
Then came the rumours: this was based on fanfiction. Surely not? I started questioning everything… before catching myself. I used to love fanfiction. Those stories are themselves read as a result of love of an existing intellectual property. This may have started life as that (I’m still unsure) but it has grown so far beyond, becoming 100% its own world, with living, breathing (mostly!) characters that I gave my heart to for the duration of my time with them. This author may have started with a basis in another writer’s work, but they have absolutely found their own voice here.We begin at the end. Protagonist Helena wakes up suddenly, having forgotten much of her past and finding herself prisoner of a war that her side apparently lost. She is tortured, healed and tortured again to find out what those hidden memories may be. Is she important? What does she know that needed burying so deeply within her mind? And why does the High Reeve, feared necromancer and second only to the Dark Lord who now rules the land, want to handle her personally?
One thing to be aware of going in: this is not a fun book. It’s dark, intense and painful. Helena may be a healer but her powers are cut off while she undergoes questioning. So many people seem to hate her, and none of her former friends or loved ones seem to have survived. Her life is bleak.
The undercurrent throughout is one of serious wartime life, albeit with magical powers, creatures and perspectives. Terrible decisions must be considered for the greater good. The constant question of just who/what is morally correct changes as the story moves forward, and the growing desperation to survive leads Helena to question her very humanity. Oh, and virtually everyone seems to be either lying or covering up multiple secrets. Nothing is what it seems.
The setting moves between a city under siege and a gorgeous gothic manor, both of which drip with atmosphere while at the same time being their own unique kind of cage. As most of her time is spent navigating stinking swamps, creepy tunnels and bloody sickrooms, those rare moments when the sun shines or Helena is able to rise above it all to simply breathe are incredibly powerful.
I’m caught between wanting to gush about the multitude of plots, twists and revelations that appear within these pages and not wanting to spoil anything, because there is just so much going on. I cannot emphasise enough that this is an entire world, multifaceted and complex. Every character is fully realized; even the side-folk have backstories and motivations that impact Helena in unexpected ways. Nobody can be disregarded because everyone is valuable.
And this is a key facet of the narrative: everyone has worth. The tragedy is that Helena herself is constantly being moved like a piece on a game-board, unable to fully express who she is due to duty or obligation (or guilt). But there is always hope, because that is essential to life. Maybe even connection, the confusion of relationships in such a messy time.
The constant question for me as reader was how I would act in her place – which led me to feel even more intensely the stakes of this fight, both as an individual and as a resident of an overwhelmed land. I chose my side at the beginning of the story, but then information was slowly revealed that greys the edges. To pick a familiar comparison, we know that the Evil Emperor is to be overcome but Darth Vader has more going on beneath his cloak than we initially see (and that took multiple movies and books to unravel!).
It’s rare in fantasy these days to have a standalone novel with a complete story, but SenLinYu really does show how it’s done. Not a single page of this book is wasted, and I was genuinely sorrowful when the back cover finally closed. It absolutely sticks the landing, fear not, but I felt as if I was waking from a beautiful dark dream in a world that I’d inhabited so thoroughly that I wanted to return again.
Absolutely unique, brilliant and like nothing you’ve ever experienced before.
Alchemised is available now – you can order your copy on Bookshop.org
