Synopsis:
Energy can neither be created nor destroyed. Only stolen.
Mages feed on catalysts like Dinnie to enhance their spells, and since she’s the most formidable weapon alive, they will stop at nothing to control her. Even her parents, leaders of warring realms, wage a battle for her custody, imprisoning her to prevent the other from gaining the upper hand.
No more.
For the first time in her fourteen years, Dinnie isn’t alone. With the help of Ghost, a glum deserter shackled to his past, she intends to flee this madness. But as they witness the horrors unleashed to retrieve her, one thing becomes clear: Her parents will never abandon their claim.
Death and destruction follow in Dinnie’s wake, and she must decide if her freedom is worth the cost.
Review:
The Source of Strife is one of those fantasy books that falls between classic fantasy meets Weird West meets zombie apocalypse, and it’s safe to say I am here for it! This book will go down as one of my 2025 faves, it was just that much fun.
In a world (movie trailer voice guy) where energy can be drawn from objects—including people—and transferred into magic. These are catalysts and channelers, plus a dampener who can hide a catalyst’s power. Two opposing lands are at war, fighting over the world’s most epic catalyst. The source of their strife (oh yeah, title pun!) is the fact that the two leaders of said lands are estranged hubby/wifey and the catalyst is their daughter. To get back his daughter, hubs is opening rifts where zombie-like creatures are attacking, so loyal soldiers from wifey’s side decide to kidnap catalyst and bring her to daddy to stop these rifts.
Normally I like to start with characters, but this definitely needs to start with the magic system. It’s so damn cool. I love the idea of catalysts being objects, but people? Yeah, that’s really neat. A channeler can take a person-catalyst’s energy and do some gnarly elemental magic, but it drains said catalyst (except the daughter’s), so it adds a layer of consequence to each scene. Then add in the dampener concept, I really thought this magic system was very inventive and unique.
Now, the story does shine with its characters. Dinnie is our 14 year old catalyst and she’s been nothing but a pawn/prisoner of her parents her whole life. She’s been smuggled back and forth already and essentially kept in an ivory tower. Dinnie knows nothing about the world, has very little agency, so much so, that she became a voluntary mute. I found it interesting a choice because in the early chapters, she’s basically just a McGuffin, but she really grows over the course of this story, and that only happens when she meets Ghost. Ghost is a former soldier of mama’s but has long since gone his own way. He is drawn back into this tug-of-war for plot reasons, but he was hella cool. Dude has some serious baggage and it all unfolds over the course of the story. Ghost is a channeler, but he’s also been able to create some energycasters (aka six-shooters ala Weird West) and the bullets are catalysts. His tools are just awesome. Bravid is the other POV character, and he’s the loyal soldier turned traitor. He’s got a complicated history with Ghost. There are other characters on the team and each are great in their own way.
This world is quite fun as well. Despite the plot basically being ‘sneak out of one land and into another’, there are some very interesting places we see. There’s a ‘floating city’, a people who live partially underground and is very ‘eff the patriarchy’, and then there’s just some good ole fashioned haunted places. Then you add in the rifts to a void where dead people kinda come back as zombies. It’s just really original and really awesome.
The prose is solid as it gets, and the action never stops. But don’t let that fool you, heavy topics are explored. Bullying. PTSD. Generational Trauma. Depression. Suicide. And each of these are handled with grace and tact, which can be very difficult for many authors. The arcs of the main three POVs were very steady and made sense for where this story was going. And while this might be a standalone, there is a lot of area that can be explored in future books, but the ending was incredibly satisfying.
I picked this book up based on the cover (which is baller by the way) and having seen a couple of good reviews. I’m so glad I did because The Source of Strife was really that good of a read. I hope Arch gets a ton of exposure and plaudits with this book. Go check it out!
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