Wraithbound

In Tim Akers' new epic fantasy book, a family goes through hell, literally, and comes up against dangerous demons. I don't know that I can quite summarize the cosmology of this book so soon after reading it, but the basic idea is that there are people who can bind their own souls to non-corporeal beings, including angels, demons, fae woodland creatures, and wraiths (hence the title). This is a very hard magic kind of a book, with the characters trying to figure out the laws of the world, and encountering people at various levels of understanding. It's a very scientific kind of fantasy, in a world that resembles eighteenth-century Europe, complete with flintlock weapons and the beginnings of industrialization.

The best thing about this book are the characters and their interactions. Right away I was hooked on how the main character Raelle (Rae for short) and his sister Lalette interact. It's not just believable, it's fun, from the way they snipe at each other to their complementary abilities and roles. It's sometimes funny, though not always as in Akers' Knight Watch series, never over-snarky, and never annoying. It would be quite engaging to read even if they were just being a family handling mundane struggles, but of course they're struggling to save the world. A side-effect of this (perhaps) is that there is plenty of modern language, which may irk some epic fantasy readers. I found it to be okay because the characters were so engaging and their interplay was irresistible.

The biggest thing keeping this from being a five star book was that it's a “mystery box” kind of a story. Rae and his sister are being pursued for the better part of the book before we really find out why. Indeed we don't find out the full why until the last few pages. This is okay, again because the interactions between the characters are so engaging. It's possible that if Akers had brought in the other perspectives necessary to spill the beans early on (as plenty of thrillers do), the book would have lost some of its charm. The entire book is told from one point of view (third person, with Rae as the viewpoint character at all times), and this means that there is a lot he's not going to know. I don't usually like stories told this way, but again it doesn't really matter all that much in this case. I highly recommend Wraithbound. It's a good book.