Full Disclosure: This book was read as an e-ARC (Advance Reader Copy) obtained via Netgalley from the publisher in advance of the book's release on June 30, 2021 in exchange for a potential review. I give my word that this did not affect my review in any way - if I felt conflicted in any way, I would simply have declined to review the book.
Return of the Sorceress by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Return of the Sorceress is a short novella (maybe novelette) by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, out this June from Subterranean Press. As I've loved practically everything by Moreno-Garcia, it was an easy choice for me to request this when it popped up on Netgalley, and I read and finished it the same day I got it. Moreno-Garcia's work, as I've detailed in various other posts on this blog, is always fascinating and has covered a number of different genres and subgenres, so I was excited again to see her take on what was billed as a take on the sword and sorcery genre.
And Return of the Sorceress is short but fun, and a solid take, featuring a Mesoamerican inspiration as its protagonist sorceress has to try to recover from betrayal and losing her power by recognizing what wrongs she did to get that power in the first place. It's not anything super special, but it's very enjoyable for its short length and worth a read.
Quick Plot Summary: Yalxi barely escaped with her life...and may not have even escaped with that. Once she rose to become the Supreme Mistress of the Guild of Sorcerers, armed with the magical power of her predecessor - a Diamond Heart....but now she was betrayed by her lover, robbed of the heart and her power, and is bleeding out of her life. Her only hope is to track down the pearl ring she wore as a mere apprentice, containing a Nahual that was once her companion, long set aside when she first claimed the Diamond Heart and power it possessed.
But though Yalxi has long put it out of her mind, the Nahual remembers the young woman she used to be....and as it accompanies Yalxi on her path to regain her magic, it will remind her of the consequences of her old actions....and the promises she once broke.
Thoughts: Return of the Sorceress is a short novella (again it's closer to novelette length) but it works really well at its story, showing Yalxi as she's forced by both necessity and the Nahual to confront her actions of her past as she attempts to gain her power back from the lover who stole it. And along the way, she's confronted with the same question: when you promised to be better than your notably evil predecessor, who you claim would come back due to your lover, but you weren't really...why should anyone believe you'll be different this time? For it's not just that Yalxi committed possibly monstrous acts to get her power (as other versions of this story might emphasize), but that Yalxi betrayed the promises of those who helped her get there - the fellow apprentice who wanted to destroy the diamond and who trusted her to be better, the lover who had ideas but relied upon Yalxi to enact them for his lack of internal strength, the people who were suffering under their old master and trusted her to make a better world.
And then there's the Nahual, her old companion, a magical creature who can take the forms of animals and grows upon her blood, who she abandoned previously once she came to power. The Nahual's reminding her of what she did, and its real feelings for Yalxi - feelings she can't understand are there at first - really makes this story work, and is an excellent side character. And so while the story reaches a conclusion that readers will expect fairly early, all these elements make it work really well, far better than it should. So yeah, recommended, even if it never does really do anything special, it makes this archetypical plot work really well.
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