Evoked

This is an indie fantasy that I threw on my wishlist because of the cover, and I got it as a gift for Christmas—which is awesome. 

One of the things that struck me immediately when I started reading was the author's chosen voice and how it came across. It's first person, and a lot of the comments are witty, tongue-in-cheek, retorts and I felt like it had an immediate likening to the voice of Jeff Lindsay throughout the Dexter series (vastly, wildly different content though). Therefore, I was pretty taken with the novel right off the bat. 

This is an urban fantasy, which other than showing us part of a small town (and one specific bar) in Alaska, does most of its storytelling in another dimension. This happened to really work for me, as I don't typically get along with urban fantasy too often. The world building and the explanation of all of the lore did a fantastic job of distancing the real world from the other dimension for me. And at just over 200 pages, the author did a great job of not making it feel like an info dump. Nor are we walked through every single day in the life of training, which was refreshing to me most of the time. 

The magic system, or ethos, is passed down through lineage and is from a direct bloodline with the gods (do not think Percy Jackson here...it's not). A person's full potential is only unlocked after their ethos has been evoked. One thing I loved about this magic system is that it was linked to stamina, but also emotions. There is no 100 page bout of the main character overusing and passing out, no training to use a bit more day after day. It's just boom, here you have it, now please just figure out what your power is. 

The plot was solid, and the writing is of a good quality for sure. A few parts skipped around a bit for me, where pages would cover months at a time, but I'll allow it to get a 237 page gut-punching fantasy. There is most definitely some spiciness in this novel, if that's your thing. There is also a straight up erotic scene, if that's also your thing. It is most definitely not my thing, but it didn't ruin it for me. 

Worth your time, money, or effort to read. Follow and support the author!