Distilled Magic (Aberterrene #1)
written by Alex Peachy
narrated by Alexis Vandom
My Rating: 4 stars
Genre: Cozy Fantasy
Age Category: Adult
Type of romance: f/f
Blurb:
Trinx’s father was insistent that she be a successful warrior son. After narrowly surviving a raid gone sideways, Trinx decides to spend a year away from her clan with an elder who cares for her and opens her eyes to who she could truly become.She returns to Chubug as a transgender goblin woman, and with the help of her best friend who knew her from before, Trinx lands a job at the Arsonist’s Tender. However, coasting through life as a barmaid leaves her yearning for more than hiding behind dark-colored stockings and creative uses of a gelatinous cube.
Trinx seeks to change the clan for the better, to improve life not just for herself, but for others like her. Change doesn’t come easy as she hops from scheme to scheme before an alchemist takes her on as an apprentice. Potions and elixirs appear to give her all she is looking for, but Trinx must learn to look beyond herself if she hopes to bring about the change in the warren she ultimately desires.
By mixing together the right combination of ingredients and friends into a forged family, Trinx may succeed in building a better home than she ever dreamed possible.
Distilled Magic is a slice-of-life fantasy novel featuring a neurodivergent goblin, alchemical magic, dragonroot tea, found family, and the power of change.
My Review
I picked this audiobook up during one of the Cozy the Day Away sales. I am always looking for more cozy fantasy audiobooks and this one was tagged as neurodivergent as well, so I decided to pick it up. I was in the mood for a new cozy fantasy read when I started listening to this book and despite going through a stressful time in my life this book easily kept my attention. I had such a fun time listening to this one. This book definitely had all the cozy fantasy vibes, but also felt unique and fresh.
I really liked main character Trinx. Trinx is a neurodivergent trans-women goblin. The book starts with her figuring out her trans status and the first two chapters, I think it was, read more as an epilogue. After that she returns to the goblin city she grew up in and tries to change the goblin culture so goblins that are different are more accepted. She has a long way ahead of her to figure out how best to achieve her goals. I liked her determination and seeing how she goes about achieving her goal. A lot of her neurodivergent traits felt relatable and I thought that part was written very well, even though they don’t have a word for being neurodivergent in goblin society. I also liked seeing how she got into alchemy and how she ended up trying to create potions to help her body become more of the women she knows she is.
I really liked how much focus there is on the alchemy. I haven’t read many books where alchemy was such a big part of the story and I liked reading about Trinx learning more about alchemy and assist her mentor as well as coming up with ideas for potions to make and ideas to add to the potions they’re making. It was a lot of fun to see it all develop. There are some funny as well as sad mishaps when potions don’t work out, but I liked seeing how these failures led them to try new things and figure out how to make the potion work.
The story has a very slice of life feel with a lot of the book being about Trinx her daily life, her desire to learn alchemy and create potions, her friendships with the people around her as well as her long term goal of changing goblin society. It had a very cozy feel and there’s a great found family theme as well which grows more important as the story progresses. I also liked seeing how Trinx tries to find a way to create change and the way she goes about that. I would’ve liked the book to be even longer as I wanted a bit more toward the end about the TQ house plot line.
I liked seeing Trinx interact with the other characters. She has some great friends and makes even more of them over the course of the book and I really liked seeing her interact with them. There are a bunch of fun and interesting side characters and I enjoyed reading about them. There is a bit of romance as well. But it’s mostly the two of being good friends until toward the end of the book when they confess their feelings.
The narrator was a new to me one and once I got used to the style I really liked listening to the audiobook. I thought she did the voices of the goblin’s very well and really added to the story. I already bought the other two books in this series in audio as well.
To summarize: I had such a great time listening to this book. It’s a slice of life style cozy fantasy book with a found family theme set in a goblin city. It has a neurodivergent trans-women goblin main character who gets into alchemy to change her body and whose goal is to change goblin society and make it more accepting for those who are different. I really liked reading about Trinx, I liked her determination and the way she learned alchemy to help herself and others. Her neurodivergent traits felt relatable and I thought those parts were well written. I liked the found family theme and seeing the friends and connections Trinx has and makes over the course of the book. I liked seeing how she works to achieve her goal to change goblin society. The alchemy was very interesting too and I liked how big of a part it was and I enjoyed seeing how they created new potions. The narrator was a good one and I liked how she did the voices for the goblins.
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