In the peace following the Great Mage Hunt, the king’s long-time mistress is revealed as a sorceress. Locked away for the safety of the kingdom, bounties are placed upon the heads of the seven children she birthed. Mage hunters have scoured the kingdom for four years, searching for the seven scattered mage-born bastards.

After growing up in an orphanage, Reshi discovers his parentage and learns to hide his magic, living peacefully in a remote village with an unusual friend. But when an alluring mage hunter comes to town, his secret is revealed, forcing Reshi to reach out to his brothers and sisters for help. A family reunion might be Reshi’s only hope for survival–or it might become a spell-slinging battle royale.

Who can Reshi rely on when his own family turns against him?

How was it?

This book has been sitting on my “shelf” for a long time, so long that now that I’ve finished it I want to kick myself for not getting to it sooner. I got to it after forging ahead on a sub-par book that I DNF. Regardless of how I ended up reading it, Sorcerous Rivalry would have been a nice surprise but in these circumstances, it was an even better one. 

I have a penchant for fantasy and romance – well urban fantasy romance has a slight edge – and this book has both. It’s a full-on fantasy story with a little bit of romance on the side. Reshi the main character and narrator of this book, is a mage in hiding who can shape-shift into a few animals, the main one being a black cat. At the very beginning it took me some time to figure that out lol, I thought he was invisible or something. Kestral the other main character is a former army now mage-hunter, stumbles upon the very mage he’s hunting, mistaking him for a fae. After tentatively getting to know each other, we embarked on a chase for Reshi’s life. The story is dark and bloody at times, filled with epic magic, secrets, and humor.

Reshi is a source of joy that flirts with frustration. He kind of annoyed me at times, not because he was poorly written or anything like that, as a matter of fact, every character we come across in this book has something compelling about them. They are well-rounded and not complete stereotypes. I did struggle with some of the names, it’s often a problem for me in a lot of fantasies, but the author makes it easy with a defining action or characteristic that allowed me to place that person.

The pace is amazing, not a dull moment, even though there is a learning curve in this fantasy medieval world. It’s not too intricate, it’s light and breeze, which helps to captivate your attention.

Sorcerous Rivalry is among the best books I’ve read this year, it’s engaging and thrilling, and very hard to put down.

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Ended 28/11