WARNING! INEVITABLE SPOILERS BELOW!

Under the tutelage of two brother barbarian kings, Tragically orphaned teenage bumpkin Emya, becomes inextricably linked with the withered, abused youth known only as the shadow—that is, until the big reveal: the shadow turns out to be a prodigal magician by the name of Felix whose link with Emya will take her far from the anti-magic prejudice of her home to the mountain stronghold of Tritium.

Amy Sutphin’s first book of her Twisted Realm series, Twisting Every Way, is a female-led coming of age story exploring the various ways different societies understand, integrate, or resist powers outside their control and understanding. There are even strong hints at a romantic subplot—which you might’ve guessed from the title and the spirit-intertwining of our adolescent female-male leads—as well as the unravelling of the mystery around Emya’s parents’ death (and Felix’s capture by the barbarian kings).

“You might’ve guessed,” is a fairly applicable phrase to describing Twisting Every Way, for good and for not-quite-good-or-bad. The setting, while coherent and believable, is standard fare for Dark Ages fantasy. There are remote villages, city-state strongholds, vast untamed wilds where magic has cursed the land, and a mountain citadel where the mages hide and conduct their studies. Twisting Every Way spends the majority of its pages describing Emya’s village and the impoverished life lived by the people there. The culture depicted is rich; clearly Sutphin had done some research. Festivals are born out of necessity, magic is shunned because of the danger it presents to the ignorant bumpkins, and none of them are able to stand against the conquest of a pair of savages. A strange comparison, but if one has seen the famous film The Seven Samurai, that well describes the state of Emya’s hometown: rural, isolated, poor, and governed by a council of elders.

The characters prove more interesting than the setting, as they are far more central to the plot. First up for discussion is the protagonist, Emya. Being born with magic, she suffered prejudicial treatment from the other villagers and had developed a complex because of it. She has no conception that anyone could accept her because she has known only rejection from everyone she’s known since the death of her parents. She especially can’t conceive of anyone accepting her BECAUSE of her magic—a key tie-in to the plot and her character development. It is a good bit of internal conflict, although Sutphin does lay it on too thickly at times (perhaps realistically so, though it doesn’t always make for the best reading). All in all, Emya is a likeable character, as is her magic-bonded companion, Felix.

Known as the shadow for most of the book, Felix is a semi-mysterious prisoner of the barbarian villains who call themselves the kings. As the shadow, he is withered and helpless—pitiable—for the brother barbarians use him as a magical well from which to siphon power into what Emya calls the object and later the companion. However, after their daring escape together, the shadow recovers and becomes the tall, handsome talented male-lead that every teenage girl wants him to be. It turns out that he is a prodigy of the citadel of magic, Tritium, and that his link to Emya, caused by the companion, means that he must bring her along with him to his home.

There isn’t much more to say yet about Felix’s character. He seems a charming fellow, but the story’s villains claim otherwise. Azo and Gabek-Fen, brutal warriors who conquer Emya’s village and “offer” to teach her to control her magic, are probably the most unique characters in the book. They a savages wearing tiger skins who have retrieved a magical artifact that allows them to cast spells despite not being magicians themselves. They seem to be somewhat educated, or at least very well-traveled, and clearly they were clever enough to capture Tritium’s prodigy–a man they claim was busy destroying other mages. While certainly self-serving, the two brothers are too thoroughly characterized to be mere stock villains, which gives rise to questions.

That moves us on to the plot. In some respects, much can be said of the plot that was said of the setting. It is structurally sound . . . sort of—we’ll come back to that—viz, it is the road most followed. As far as the novella reads, we have Emya set up with Felix, the former to grown into her own person and learn to accept herself, and the later likely to mature into a man capable of responsibility which a life of natural talent has yet to foster. However, that is all speculation, and herein lies a significant problem.

Twisting Every Way is the first part in a multi-part novella series, but really, it seems more like a novel cut into three pieces (having only read the first book so far). The pacing is very, very fast in the first couple chapters, but then seems to grind to a slog as the story develops. This is a consequence of Twisting Every Way being functionally the exposition of the actual central conflict. Sure, the escape from the kings is a complete sub-plot, but that is what it is, a sub-plot. It resolves mid-way through the novel, and “resolves” is a strong word. The kings are not defeated and are likely to appear again and capture either Emya or Felix (or Emya’s new friend Evris, likely the third point in a later love-triangle) as part of a future plot complication.

Then there is the romantic sub-plot between Emya and Felix. Again, this is speculative, but one very much seems to be set up—set up, with no progress or development. And, it seems to me to be a more significant sub-plot in the grand scheme of Emya’s character development than her time with the kings.

Why is this relevant? Well, the plot events don’t feel as though they have any stakes shortly after the escape from the kings. We move from fast story backward to set up. This is a common problem among first entries into a series: the over-arching plot is there, but there isn’t a full plot for the first instalment, so at a certain point, the events begin to feel irrelevant or else very, very slow until the conflict initiates (or re-initiates in the case of Twisting Every Way). In this books case, the reader gets a lot of interesting world building, which is nice, but it is hard to care after the tension has been exhausted, and new tension really isn’t built—though Sutphin does try via Emya’s insecurities and fears—but the attempts just don’t hit the mark.

That all being said, if one conceives of Twisting Every Way as part of a novel as opposed to a novella, this issue may be partly resolved. It is certainly all the more reason to keep reading, as there are plenty of mysteries still to be resolved. How exactly did Emya’s parents die? Who are the kings, really? And is Felix really to be trusted? Will Emya be able to maintain her friendship with Evris once they are both studying magic? Or will a romantic triangle form and ruin their friendship?

If you, like me, are intrigued, start the Twisted Realm series for yourself by clicking the book cover above to order your copy!