Sponsored by Avid Reader Press, publisher of Infinite Country.
In this Reese’s Book Club Pick and New York Times bestselling novel, award-winning, internationally acclaimed author Patricia Engel—herself a dual citizen and the daughter of Colombian immigrants—gives voice to a family that occupies two different countries. Rich with Bogotá urban life, steeped in Andean myth, and tense with the daily reality of the undocumented in America, Infinite Country is as much an all-American story as it is a global one.
Welcome to Read This Book, a newsletter where I recommend one book that should absolutely be put at the top of your TBR pile. Recommended books will vary across genre and age category and include shiny new books, older books you may have missed, and some classics I suggest finally getting around to. Make space for another pile of books on your floor because here we go (and check out our awesome limited edition gear for Book Riot’s 10th anniversary)!
Today’s pick is heavy on the creepy crawlies and an excellent October read.
Forest of Souls by Lori M. Lee
Sometimes I pick up a book and start reading without looking at the synopsis. Well, apparently I didn’t even look super closely at the cover of this one because then I would have realized that it heavily involves giant spiders. So there’s my content warning if you, like me, are scared of spiders.
Forest of Souls is the first in a trilogy. It begins with a glossary because this is Fantasy with a capital F. There is some really rich worldbuilding that gets a bit complicated and I definitely had to refer to the glossary a few times. There is the continent of Thiy which has three kingdoms: one of humans, one of shadowblessed, and one of shamans. They all hate each other. Running down the center of the continent is The Dead Wood, a super freaky wood possessed by vengeful souls controlled by a powerful shaman named Ronin.
Sirscha Ashwyn is a teen soldier in training and secretly in training and competition to be the Queen’s Shadow, her master spy and assassin. The Queen considers all shamans to be outlaws and does not allow them in her kingdom unless they are in prison. Shamans each have a particular craft, like a talent, and a familiar. They can work with either fire, earth, wind, water, or light in different ways. You can tell what kind of shaman they are by the intense, bright color of their eyes.
Sirscha and her best friend Saengo are doing a routine assignment with some of the younger recruits when they intercept a message from a fellow trainee named Jonyah, who she hates. Sirscha learns that he is her secret competitor to become the Queen’s Shadow and the message is in their teacher’s handwriting with directions to meet someone at a tea house. Sirscha and Saengo sneak away to try to beat him to the tea house and learn it was an ambush. There were shamans at the tea house and they attacked. Saengo gets stabbed, and Sirscha passes out.
She wakes up at a stream and Saengo is strangely alive even though Sirscha is sure that she saw her die. When Sirscha goes to wash her face in the stream, she finds her eyes have changed color into that of a shaman. While they are out deliberating, they get caught by the Prince, who is captain of the Queen’s Guard. They eventually hear from Ronin, who summons them to go through the Dead Wood and see him. His familiar is a giant spider and that is not even the beginning of the creepiness.
This was such an amazing book to lose myself in and a definitely page-turner.
That’s it for now, book-lovers!
Patricia
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