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General Housekeeping:

First and foremost, thank you to the authors again for sharing their literary world with The Critiquing Chemist and the Bookish Boffin!

Over the next few Friday’s the Critiquing Chemist will be posting their elimination posts for SPFBOX. This is our fifth year participating in SPFBO and our fourth year partnering with the lovely and wonderful Lynn’s Books. Every year this stage of the congest get’s harder and harder!

With these first three SPFBO eliminations, The Critiquing Chemist and her Bookish Boffin, along with Lynn’s Books, are working their way through Phase One. Elimination posts, such as this one, will serve as a general announcement regarding the titles to be cut with a short spoiler-free overview included for each novel. For books read to completion, the spoiler-free overview will be expanded upon in the following days with a full review post for each eliminated novel. That being said, it would be appropriate to add the following disclaimer that DNF books will not have their own post outside of the initial elimination one. Full posts will follow the traditional formatting style for reviews on The Critiquing Chemist by including a spoiler-abundant insight section in addition to the overview sans spoilers. The eliminations and semifinalists will ONLY be announced in specific posts regarding those aforementioned topics and not in the individual novel full reviews. 

Without further ado, our first set of eliminations can be found in the next section. Please keep in mind that these titles are in no particular order or ranking, whether within this post, or the rest of our Phase One cuts.

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The Lost Redeemer by David Musk

Rate: 8/10

Overview:

Nahlia Cole has a secret that she’s kept most of her life, though in her backwoods village it’s easy to pretend life is normal. Over the course of an evening, Nahlia’s life is turned upside down and she is left fleeing for her life, and embracing an identity she’s spent years suppressing. What will Nahlia sacrifice in order to reclaim all that she holds dear?

The Lost Redeemer contains so many elements that traditionally encompass YA, from a hidden magic school to unexpected powers and gray moral dilemmas. That said, Musk weaves them together in a fresh mix that keeps the reader engaged and curious. Musk establishes characters that are engaging and complex, though much of the supporting cast is left for future development. 

The history of this world is both rich and full of pain as no side is without blame. Aeons were powerful and abused their position, and the revenge the Templars exacted was horrifying. The echoes of this fallout are still being felt almost a decade later. 

The Whitecliff Academy is likely my favorite part of this story, with a blend of battles, libraries, and mystery. Through the kids of this school we really glimpse the hidden culture of the Aeons and how they’ve survived over the past ten years. 

Overall, The Lost Redeemer has familiar ingredients expertly added to create an entertaining story of loss and resolve that will keep the reader hooked throughout. 

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Under an Azure Sky by Wil Chan

Rate: DNF (80%)

Overview:

When everything Elysia Dayne loved is brutally lost in a matter of minutes, the trajectory of her life is irreversibly altered to one of vengeance. She channels this new focus into a drive that defies all odds and turns her into a legend. As her present mission goes awry, will she be able to save not only her own life, but somehow salvage the job?

There was so much I enjoyed about Under an Azure Sky, from Elysia’s backstory to her current role as the unexpected legend. Chan’s descriptions were vivid and really brought the whole world to life. That said, with keeping the detailed descriptions in mind, we had to relive the raw pain from brutal deaths of her family over and over again, at least four different times with the disjointed time jumps that prolonged that unbelievably terrible day. I found the leaps in the story to be rather jarring as they were abrupt, severing the emotions or suspense of the present day, to flash back to Elysia’s past. The jumps to the past did not follow any set pattern as we volleyed to the day Blue was provoked to the events leading up to Elysia taking her present job. At least from an audiobook medium, I would find myself initially confused by the change until I realized I was in a new time frame. Overall though, Chan’s Under an Azure Sky is a detailed story that kept me curious about the tales behind the events that made Elysia a legend.

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The Wind Walker by Simon Shugar

Rate: 7.5

Overview:

An orphan, trapped in the most hopeless of locations, Zephyr is desperate for a way out of his situation and will step on anyone to escape out of the depths of Crater. I found Zephyr to be such an interesting character due to his tunnel vision regarding saving himself, though there are some key contradictions that add complexity to the overall depth. He abandons his friends and put them at risk without a second thought, but will lose all sense of self to anger that builds around anything related to slavery. So his moral compass swings wildly when slavery is the topic but is nonexistent when people who have been loyal or shown him kindness are involved. That extreme does not mesh well, though to be fair, people are often filled with contradictions, especially in such dire situations.

The other main character that The Wind Walker follows is Captain Bacchus. He is a flamboyant, over the top pirate of The Glee who has legendary renown. In reality he is a drunk who seems to be carried by his extraordinary crew. Regardless, his chapters are some of my favorites as they go on a mission that seems to be a curiosity more than anything, especially when the information provided is little more than a riddle. 

The steampunk technology in The Wind Walker was fun especially with the Rat Tails and pretty much every visit to the Tinker’s. In the opening pages of The Wind Walker there were some fantastic images that really bring Crater to life. The whole layered ecosystem was such a curiosity and Shugar did a great job capturing that unique setting in print. 

The ending seemed so rushed from full measure of the consequences of Zephyr’s selfish actions to dual rescue attempts and the big reveal at the end. I felt like I was sprinting and missing important implications along the way. 

Overall, The Wind Walker is a desperate story of escape, intermingled with an elaborate rescue mission, that Shugar isolates into the dark and dangerous Crater.

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