review; heart of mist

Title: Heart Of Mist
Author: Helen Scheuerer
Genre: YA, fantasy
Type: E-book
Publisher: Talem Press
Series: The Oremere Chronicles

In a realm where toxic mist sweeps the lands and magic is forbidden, all Bleak wants is a cure for her power.

Still grieving the death of her guardian and dangerously self-medicating with alcohol, Bleak is snatched from her home by the Commander of the King’s Army, and summoned to the capital.

But the king isn’t the only one interested in Bleak’s powers.

The leader of an infamous society of warriors, the Valia Kindred, lays claim to her as well, and Bleak finds herself in the middle of a much bigger battle than she anticipated.

Heart of Mist is the gripping first book in The Oremere Chronicles, a fantasy series of epic proportions.

I received this copy in exchange for an honest review from the author. All thoughts and opinions are my own. Thank you Helen!

HI I AM IN LOVE. This was the perfect start to this trilogy, and I’m writing this review after finishing all three books so that may colour it a bit.

The series follows four main character POVs – Bleak, the first, is a drunken teenager who is arrested for reasons she does not understand at first, and that sparks of the rest of the story; Henri, a warrior woman who has so many layers that we see unfold over the course of the story; Commander Swinton, the antagonist in this first book, the one who arrests Bleak, and who has secrets of his own; and finally Dash, a ten-year-old stableboy living near the palace who is friends with the princess. Bleak is the most prominent in this novel, we start and end with her POV, and her story intersects with Henri’s and Swinton’s. We do not see Dash much, but there is a set up for more in his POV that made me intrigued.

While the story moves pretty fast, this novel is a lot of set up. The world is built, not in info-dumping, but with the unveiling of secrets upon secrets, and the characters learning things – not just in their lives, but in the entire world – are not as they seem.

I don’t want to give any spoilers, because honestly, this is such a good set up for the rest of the series. It’s written in such a way that you get sucked into the world and it is almost jarring to leave it. A mark of a good read is one that makes you want to immediately pick the next book up, and Heart Of Mist does exactly that.