Synopsis:
It’s Murder on the Orient Express with witches, for fans of VE Schwab, Leigh Bardugo, Courtney Smyth, as well as Agatha Christie.
A blend of fantasy and Golden Age crime, set in an unforgiving landscape that steams with sulphur and bubbles with lava.
The Linde siblings—Kellen, Davina, and Morel—are anxious to return to the kingdom of Halgyr before their father dies, leaving Kellen to assume the throne as king. They book tickets on a luxury express train, expecting a swift journey home—but disaster strikes when the train engine explodes, stranding the siblings atop a caldera bubbling with volcanic magic.
The crash triggers Davina’s latent witch powers, but her magic disrupts her ability to remember what she was doing when the explosion took place. While a witch would be the prime suspect for the explosion, the only ones who knew Davina might become one are her brothers—who never warned her, driving her away from them. And, to add insult to injury, somebody is bumping off the surviving train crew and passengers. But it can’t be Davina, can it?
While the surviving passengers try to determine who sabotaged the engine and catch the killer, the fractured siblings attempt to stay one step ahead, concealing not only Davina’s powers but their own secrets. Luckily, they aren’t the only shifty characters on the train. But that small degree of good fortune quickly sours when powerful men turn up dead, suggesting the saboteur is still at work. And who better a mark for the murderer than the heirs to a foreign throne?
Review:
I had a thoroughly wonderful time with Emily Paxman’s debut novel, Death on the Caldera.
A little bit fantasy, a little bit mystery, a little sci-fi — Paxman managed to weave together fun and unexpected elements to craft a captivating mystery with compelling characters.
At first, it seems like Davina Linde is the primary protagonist, but by the time the action impacts and the mystery really sets in, Paxman has passed the torch around plenty, letting us into the minds of her two brothers as well as a handful of other passengers on the doomed train. While I liked Davina, I really connected with Kellen, Davina’s older brother. As heir to the throne of Halgyr, Kellen’s life hasn’t been his own for a while and this trip back to his homeland is to assume the throne — although the royal family in Halgyr always keeps their anonymity to relate better to their subjects. Just another fun wrinkle Paxman adds to her story to keep things off-kilter.
The chapters just bounce from one character to another and there are so many plotlines that Paxman has to juggle to make Death on the Caldera work — and boy, does she. By the time I’d gotten to the two-thirds mark, I was fully invested and had a hard time putting the book down.
Death on the Caldera is a great fantasy story with magic and witches and the ancient history of the lands, jammed together with how the rocks and minerals impact the “volchemistry” of this world. Then…add in an Agatha Christie-worthy mystery where the deaths keep coming, and Paxman has a book that is one of my favorites of the year so far.
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