The Beasts We Bury by D. L. Taylor
Series: The Broken Citadel, Book 1
Pages: 359
Format: Hardback (Special Edition)
Daughter and heir to the throne, Mancella Cliff yearns for a life without bloodshed. But as a child, she emerged from the Broken Citadel with the power to summon animals—only after killing them with her bare hands. Her magic is a constant reminder of the horrors her father, the ruler of the realm, has forced upon her to strengthen their power.
Silver is a charming thief struggling to survive in a world torn apart by Mancella’s father’s reign. When a mysterious benefactor recruits him for the heist of a lifetime, a chance to rob the castle, Silver relishes the opportunity for a real future—and revenge. But he’ll have to manipulate Mance and earn her trust to pull it off.
As the deception and carnage mount, Mance must find a way to save her realm without becoming the ruthless monster she’s been bred to be. And when Silver discovers that his actions are fueling the violence that Mance wants to prevent, he’ll have to choose between his ambition and the girl he’s falling for.
Like many fantasy novels, magic is at the center of the political structures and action of the plot. What Taylor has created is, essentially, a randomized magic system where there’s no way to tell what kind of magic a person will manifest (there’s more complexity to the situation, but that’s better left to the book to explain). The way Taylor approaches this magic system was unique enough to hold my interest, and the actual powers themselves are far from the typical elemental-wielding magics. I will say as a warning, Mance’s magic (the protagonist) does involve the harming and killing of animals against her will, depicted with a fair amount of detail, so there are some scenes that might be distressing if you are particularly sensitive to harmed animals in fiction. I got pretty weepy in a couple of the chapters, so that’s something to keep in mind before trying this novel. I wouldn’t count it as a point against the book, however, since the emotional response brought me closer to understanding Mance.
The world itself is fascinating in the actual places that are described, and it is politically complex. There’s a lot of room to expand in the second book, but there also weren’t too many holes where it became confusing. I wasn’t entirely sold on the promised romance at first, because it isn’t a terribly long book, and the two protagonists really seemed to hate each other. I was worried throughout the first half of the novel that their relationship was going to be a rushed thing, but it made more sense once I got to the second half. Also, Mance and Silver are functional characters outside of their connection to each other, so that also helped make the possibility of a romance more believable.
The whole book itself is filled with messy, complicated relationships, but not in a bad way. The messiness wasn’t annoying (except when I really wanted everyone to get along – but what kind of story is that?). Rather, it showed how compelling the secondary characters were and their unique, developed personalities/motives. Every argument they had made sense, and the frequent interpersonal conflicts kept the novel’s momentum going.
One of the late book twists is spoiled in the book jacket synopsis, so it didn’t really have the kick it would’ve had otherwise. Other twists (read the book to figure them out!) were good for the narrative, but were sometimes predictable. Not predictable in a “baldly obvious” sort of way, but the twists were rather fulfilling if you guessed correctly about them earlier on.
Overall, this was a very emotional book. I struggled to put it down, and found myself sneaking in a page here or there when I was supposed to be doing other things. I’d highly recommend picking this up when you get a chance.
AMBER BUDD - Author 