The Tethered Mage by Melissa Caruso – Review

Published: October 24, 2017

Publisher: Orbit

Genre: Fantasy

Series: Swords and Fire #1

Pages: 438 (Paperback)

My Rating: 4.0/5.0

A copy of this book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Synopsis:

In the Raverran Empire, magic is scarce and those born with power are strictly controlled — taken as children and conscripted into the Falcon Army. 

Zaira has lived her life on the streets to avoid this fate, hiding her mage-mark and thieving to survive. But hers is a rare and dangerous magic, one that threatens the entire empire.

Lady Amalia Cornaro was never meant to be a Falconer. Heiress and scholar, she was born into a treacherous world of political machinations. But fate has bound the heir and the mage.

War looms on the horizon. A single spark could turn their city into a pyre.

The Tethered Mage is the first novel in a spellbinding new fantasy series.

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I am both happy and sad to have read this book so many weeks after its release in October – sad because it’s an excellent book and I could have read it so much sooner and happy because the sequel is a mere 3 months away. The Tethered Mage was highly rated on every site I checked out, whether it was Goodreads or an individual’s blog and if I hadn’t been so darn busy in October I would have read this on time! As it were, I ended up getting the audio version just so I could squeeze it in before the end of the year. Obviously this review is showing up a bit later than that.

Mages are rare and dangerous and Zaira is the most dangerous of all – an untethered fire mage – and when she first encounters Amalia Cornaro she’s about to burn down the city. Amalia Cornaro is heiress to one of the Raverran council seats, making her one of the more important, influential people in the city and when she meets Zaira, she’s been tracking down a rare book in a lower quarter of the city. At the end of the encounter, Zaira ends up shackled to Amalia for the rest of her life much to the chagrin of both. The Tethered Mage is a wonderful exploration of how the characters deal with this unwanted situation, larger political crises, and a great deal of personal drama. One of the most notable aspects of this book is how Amalia’s mother – a powerful council member and mistress of intelligence – actually loves her daughter, cares about her fate, and is grooming her to one day take her seat. This was a pleasant surprise and defied the usual antagonistic familial relationship trope that pops up all too frequently, especially when the parent is in a powerful position.

The story overall is pretty great, with vague flavors of The Lies of Locke Lamora and a fantastic cast of secondary characters. The worldbuilding, politicking, and action are all very well done, from small to large scale. My only real peeve here is that Zaira was a rather frustrating character, though I did sympathize with her situation and can totally understand why she lashes out and insists on being stubborn and difficult. She has redeeming qualities and I’m looking forward to see how she continues to develop in the next two books. There were a few fantastic plot twists in The Tethered Mage where I was left somewhat stunned. I always love when that happens!

I think The Tethered Mage was a solid, captivating debut that has left me wanting the sequel as soon as possible. I’m looking forward to where Melissa Caruso takes the next book and believe she can only improve from here!