Awakenings (The Chronicles of Nerezia #1)
by Claudie Arseneault
My Rating: 4 stars
Genre: Cozy Fantasy
Age Category: Adult
Type of romance: no romance
Blurb:
Innkeep, hunter, blacksmith, nurse—Horace has apprenticed for every clan in the domed city of Trenaze, and they’ve all rejected em. Too hare-brained. Too talkative. Too slow. Ever the optimist, e has joined Trenaze’s guards to be mentored. Horace has high hopes to earn eir place during eir trial at the Great Market. That is, until the glowing shards haunting the world break through the city’s protective dome, fused together in a single, monstrous amalgam of Fragments.Armed with a sword, a shield, and far too little training, Horace doubts eir ability to defend the market-goers. But eir last stand is interrupted by a mysterious elven figure who can dissipate the Fragments with a single, strange sentence: your story is my story.
From the moment it is uttered, Horace knows the sentences holds true for em, too—and when the elf collapses in the middle of the market, e carries them to safety, to recover away from the panicked crowd and inevitable questions from eir fellow guards. It could cost em eir apprenticeship—eir last chance to find eir place in eir home city—but Horace cannot resist the pull of this mystery elf and the call of a new friend.
Aliyah has but one desire: to leave Trenaze’s safe boundaries and find the forest that haunts their dreams. After an afternoon of board games in their quiet, sharp-witted company, Horace is ready to follow, confronting Fragments and other dangers of the road to understand what happened that day, hear Aliyah’s laugh again and finally feel like e belongs.
—-
Awakenings is the first of a series of nine fantasy novellas with a platonic found family at its heart. It marries the quiet moments of cozy fantasy and the fun adventures of D&D-style sidequesting.
My Review
I think it was in a newsletter I saw the second book in this series being mentioned and something about it caught my eye. Not much later I decided to buy the first book and again it didn’t take me long before I started it. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect of it, but I knew I wanted to read it. And I am glad I did as I ended up really enjoying this one and already bought book 2 so I can continue the series.
While reading Awakenings I was going back and forth between a 3 star and 4 star rating in my head. I was a bit lost at times, not fully understanding what was going on, but later realized the characters don’t either most of the times. I don’t like being confused and I struggled a bit with that. The further I got the better I got to know the characters and once they set off in the wagon the found family theme really comes through and then the world building gets expanded a bit as well. By then this one firmly went into the 4 stars rating and I wanted to read more.
I liked Horace from the start. There’s something that felt relatable about em. There’s eir kind personality, the way e helps a stranger because it feels right. I felt bad for how eir hadn’t found a place to belong with all eir apprenticeships ending in failure, but how eir still kept hope and determination was something I admired. And then when eir joins the wagon and eir new friend Alijah on their journey I felt happy for eir to have found a place and family to belong with. I loved the found family theme and reading about Alijay, Horace and Rumi was so fun. Alijay and Rumi I felt we got to know less than Horace, but there was still plenty to get a feel for their personalities and I look forward to getting to know more in future books.
This book is very much the start of the journey with introducing the characters, story and world. There isn’t as much world building yet, but I liked the pieces that are there. And I loved the scenes where they play the dice and later the card game Proteins. I just loved the way this made the world feel even more real and those scenes were just so fun!
To summarize: I wasn’t quite sure what to think of this book at first, some events of the plot could be a bit confusing at times. Then the found family theme and some world building came into play and from that moment I knew I wanted to continue the series. I really liked reading about Horace, e felt real and relatable and I enjoyed reading about em. The other characters are interesting too and I liked getting a feel for their personalities. I really liked the found family theme and seeing the three of them interact. The world building is subtle so far and there’s not as much yet, but I liked the pieces that are there and I absolutely loved the way the dice and card game add to the world building. By the end of the book I was eager for more and I’ve already bought the next book.
Leave a Reply