Wednesday, August 14, 2019

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Nocturna by Maya Motayne




Nocturna is the first in a Young Adult Fantasy trilogy in a Latinx-Inspired world and seems to be author Maya Montayne's debut novel.  I should add that the book, while the first in an announced trilogy, works quite well as a stand-alone, so no commitment is needed to try this book.

And Nocturna is certainly a promising start to this trilogy and to Motayne's career as a novelist - featuring a pair of very solid main characters, an excellent setting and magic system, and a very satisfying story.  The plot and characters are definitely formulaic to a good extent and there are definitely key plot elements that are very predictable, but the book executes these tropes very well.  In the end, I look forward to seeing where the trilogy goes from here and would love to see these characters again.


--------------------------------------------------Plot Summary-------------------------------------------------
Prince Alfie returns home to the Castallan Kingdom after years away with no intention of staying.  A few years prior, he fled the Kingdom after his brother was assassinated by a strange magic, in hopes of finding a forbidden magic that could possibly bring back his brother.  Aided by his propio (a personal magic unique to the rare individuals who have them), which allows him to see the "colors" of the magics of others, Alfie has only returned home for a chance to obtain another set of foreign magic books, despite his family's hopes he'll stay and accept his duty to be the heir to the kingdom.

Finn is far from royalty, but rather, a thief who has traveled the world under the dark influence of a monster.  Now free of him, Finn uses her propio - in her case, the ability to change her appearance as she desires - to help her thievery so often to the point where she has almost forgotten her own face.  Having seen horrors though her life, Finn has no use for the royalty, and simply struggles to survive.

But when chance brings Finn and Alfie together, the two find themselves the only ones present when a dark power is unleashed upon the world.  And only by Alfie and Finn learning to cooperate can they possibly stop this power from taking everything they hold dear....including the entire Kingdom.
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As I mentioned before the jump, a lot of Nocturna follows a formula that will be familiar to readers.  You have the lower class thief and the high class noble, both with darkness in their pasts and reasons to resent the other, and class differences that the two need to bridge through new understandings.  The two start rivals and - again this is formulaic so I'm not really spoiling - will become friends through it all.  And we get to see the story for the most part through their two perspectives (with one other character getting a few bits here and there from his perspective and then a few chapters from other viewpoints just to paint the total picture).

But this formula is traditional because it works, and it allows Motayne to build characters who are three-dimensional and easy to root for and care about.  Yeah we've seen the formulas of Finn and Alfie before, but their character archetypes are done so well that you never really mind it.  And the side characters are excellent and often break these archetypes, particularly the antagonists from both Alfie and Finn's pasts, who may not quite be what they seem.

This is helped by the setting which is really well done and makes me want more in this world.  The magic system, whether it be the individualized magic of the propios, which is often triggered by tragic pasts, or the elemental magic that is more common and typical, is really interesting and well done.  And the setting contains a country that is still reeling from the after effects of the imperialist agenda of a neighboring country, which once conquered them and stole their magic.  That other country never comes into play in this story, being consigned entirely to the background, but their presence is felt early and I suspect will play more significantly later in the trilogy...and I really can't wait for that to happen.  And of course there's the clear Latinx influence, which makes the setting feel fresher perhaps than the plot formula by being different than the norm to a certain extent.

Again, it's far from a perfect book, even aside from being formulaic - the main antagonist is dealt with maybe a bit too easily at the end, with a really cheesy trope being used at one point.  And a lesser antagonist is hinted at being part of a more major plot only for that to never actually pan out in any way whatsoever here - and while that might be picked up in the sequels, it just feels disappointing and pointless here.

But overall, Nocturna is very well done, with the Latinx flavor making things a little fresh, to go along with the excellent magic system and well executed, if formulaic characters.  I look forward to reading more in this world.
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