Spellslinger by Sebastien de Castell – Review

Published: July 17, 2018

Publisher: Orbit Books

Series: Spellslinger #1

Genre: Fantasy, Young Adult

Pages: 432 (Paperback)

My Rating: 5.0/5.0

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

Synopsis:

A would-be mage with no magic of his own has to defeat powerful enemies with only cunning and deception in the first book of an exciting adventure fantasy series from Sebastien de Castell.

Kellen is moments away from facing his first duel and proving his worth as a spellcaster. There’s just one problem: his magic is fading.

Facing exile unless he can pass the mage trials, Kellen is willing to risk everything – even his own life – in search of a way to restore his magic. But when the enigmatic Ferius Parfax arrives in town, she challenges him to take a different path.

One of the elusive Argosi, Ferius is a traveller who lives by her wits and the cards she carries. Daring, unpredictable, and wielding magic Kellen has never seen before, she may be his only hope.

The first novel in a compelling six-book series, bursting with tricks, humor, and a whole new way to look at magic.

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I’m going to start off by saying that it’s not often that I read a book in a single day – unfortunately adult responsibilities don’t usually allow for that. I started reading this book during my lunch break and after 40-ish minutes I spent reading I had somehow devoured 60+ pages. I went home and I basically chugged this book in one go. This was really surprising because I was pretty apathetic towards the Greatcoats books and as of this moment haven’t finished that series.

Spellslinger is a book that will definitely appeal to a broad audience. It leans more toward the YA fantasy genre, but it was definitely of better quality than traditional YA because you know, de Castell is a pretty great writer. The story was immediately engaging and both the characters and society were really cool. One of my favorite parts was the introduction of the flying squirrel, which was believed to be the Nekhek, a terrible beast of the enemy. In reality they’re nasty, biting little monsters and if you can understand them, they’ve got quite the sailor’s vocabulary but they’re nowhere near being as monstrous as they’re made out to be. I totally loved it.

Kellen is about to reach his sixteenth birthday, which means that as one of the Jan’tep people he should be about to reach his majority and be able to perform magic to some degree… unfortunately he’s so weak as to basically have no magic at all which bodes poorly for him. Those of the Jan’tep who can display no proficiency are cast out and become one of the lesser Sha’tep and serve one of the great families. He’s a clever boy and has more brains than any two of his fellow classmates put together but that won’t suffice. About this time one Ferius Parfax arrives in town with her decks of cards and her disregard for the ways of the Jan’tep and she saves Kellen’s life when one of his clever plans goes awry. This pretty much guarantees his fascination with her and the two of them end up assisting one another several times afterwards. Shortly afterwards Reichis the foul-mouthed squirrel beasty makes his appearance and honestly, and he might be my favorite character.

This isn’t your usual YA book and it doesn’t have some ridiculous love triangle, or a nobody finding out they’re the chosen one, or a quest to save the world. This is the story of a boy who can’t live up to his family’s or society’s expectations and will be cast out because of it. He challenges his society, and is in turn challenged to question the traditions and history he’s always been presented with as truth. History is written by the winners after all. I didn’t care for Kellen’s tribe, family, or friends because they abandoned him. They were just going to write him off as a failure when he couldn’t use magic to the standards of society and make him a slave as punishment. The more I learned of not only the Jan’tep, but Kellen’s immediate family, the more I was disgusted by them. I was pretty satisfied with the ending of the book and I definitely can’t wait to check out the next book, which at this moment is waiting on my shelf. The Spellslinger series is off to a phenomenal start and I hope it retains this quality over the rest of the series.