The Emerald Serpent by K.S Nikakis

I am an avid fantasy reader. Give me magic, faeries, mythical beings and I’m a pretty happy lady, what’s even better? Having people I know write amazing fantasy in different sub-genres, it makes me beyond happy and I was pretty lucky to get a little bit of the behind the scenes action with this book. It was written by the former head of my undergrad degree and the best thing about this? I managed to make a non-editor out of a serial editor of words. It only took like a week and a half of me hounding Karen before she turned around and said to me: Mandi guess what I did? I didn’t edit.

I may have gotten way too excited about that small fact. It was such a joy to watch this book come to fruition and enjoy the joy that it brought to Karen to watch her birth it out into the world. The story is one that definitely stays with you and I’m dying for more.

Finally finishing The Emerald Serpent (not that it was hard but during all of my study it made it harder to get there) was a joy. I was left longing for more, needing to know what happened next and as I fell in love with Etaine, a true-Eadar Ranger, she’s weak but by no means useless. Her weakness is tied to that of another true-Eadar Ranger, Cormac, a man she joined with in love, only to lose him to an unthinkable event that tears them apart and leave Cormac with no memory of it. Although this is definitely something that made me dislike Cormac through most of the book, but it’s also something that isn’t all his fault.

But that’s not all that’s amiss, The Fada are on the hunt to kill all Eadar so that they can rule again. Etaine’s only option is to trust Cormac again and help him sift through the memory of their coupling the first time around. This is the part of the story that really jerked my heart and probably my favourite, it also makes me dislike Cormac less because of it. Ok and maybe I started to like him after I understood why it all happened. You see the Emerlad Way doesn’t take it all that lightly when something goes wrong and I suppose it almost puts a barrier up so that Cormac can still be a good leader and not suffer with the loss and grief of what happened.

I love Karen’s ability to take the reader into an unknown and different world of the fae and completely reimagine them. Her descriptions, setting and world building are a thing of beauty and definitely a high point in the story. You can literally feel the detail that is littered through every sentence in the story and pulls you in. There are definitely some really beautiful lines in the book that took my breath away.

If you’ve been thinking about reading a new book, definitely get your hands on The Emerald Serpent, it’s available on Amazon and while you’re at it you can check the pretty awesome dedication. I have never had a book dedicated to me so it was definitely a lovely surprise to see it in writing. Thank you Karen, I don’t think I’ve actually said that, but I’m grateful.