Green and Deadly Things is a new standalone novel by prolific fantasy author Jenn Lyons, known for the A Chorus of Dragons series. We follow Mathiiak, a novitiate in the order of the Idallik Knights who are sworn to protect the world from the forces of necromancy. When a primal force is awakened in a nearby forest, the knights find themselves deeply underestimating their foe, and potentially causing the downfall of their order. 

Mathiiak does his best to protect his charges and follow orders, but his magic is posing challenges of its own. He’s not yet a knight because he can’t wield an elemental weapon, but he’s a powerful magic user. Unfortunately, his magic seems to be materialising in much the same way as some of the grim witches that the knights are sworn to defeat. He must walk the line between obeying his commanders and discovering his own potential. However, everything is thrown into chaos when he wakes up one of the sleeping Grim Lords lying below the fortress. A Grim Lord who nearly destroyed humanity hundreds of years ago along with her brethren.

The world we’re plunged into is expansive with many familiar elements: magic forests, jungle tribes, elemental knights, and evil necromancers. The magic system has hard rules and uses simplicity to its advantage, though some characters seem to be above these rules depending on what the plot required. This story could have benefitted from being at least a hundred pages longer to fully explore the magical abilities of our two protagonists. Instead, this development felt rushed, convenient, and this massively impacted the gravity and suspense of the plot during some key moments. 

This is an adventure story through and through with a fast-paced plot that doesn’t have time to take a breath once the the inciting incident throws everything into disarray. There’s a lot of worldbuilding crammed into expository dialogue in the first hundred pages which does feel a bit like reading an oddly formatted textbook at times, and this story certainly would have benefitted from showing the reader more instead of telling them. It was hard to picture the settings due to the lack of description and this led to some surprising revelations about the levels of technology available in the world in later chapters.

The characters were the strength in this book, they were numerous but easy enough to tell apart and each one had a distinct personality that they didn’t stray from. Moments of lightness and humour were balanced with darker, more sinister happenings and it was easy to root for them. A number of side characters definitely stole the show and if Lyons decided to write a spin-off about the children at the fortress, I would certainly pick it up.

Overall, this is a solid fantasy book for readers who want a speedy, adventurous romp that you don’t have to think too hard about. There are twists and turns and gasp out loud moments and it’s easy to get swept up in the story. I would recommend it to fans of Robert Jackson Bennett or Nicholas Eames.

Green and Deadly Things is due for release 5th March from Tor – you can order your copy on Bookshop.org