Book Review: The Obsidian Tower
Honestly, this one almost slipped me by. I loved Caruso’s Swords and Fire series (yes, someday I will go back and review the last one, I swear), and so as soon as I heard that this was set in the same world, I was ALL IN. Then I saw the aesthetic and read the blurb, and I was DOUBLY IN.
As warden of Gloamingard, Ryxander has heard her family’s lore since she was a child: nothing must unseal the door. But the cryptic warnings are a remote concern compared to her broken, destructive magic that makes her a threat to almost everyone around her. That changes the night a malicious guest breaks into the tower, and Ryx kills her accidentally. Now Ryx must find a way to finalize an ongoing political negotiation, put off the dead woman’s angry Witch Lord boyfriend, and figure out how to deal with the artifact in the tower.
I love the premise of this series even more than the last one. The stakes are high as HECK. Caruso doesn’t dick around dragging out the mystery of the tower; she gets right to it with a big early reveal and then starts throwing implication after implication at her cast. It’s brutal, but also wonderful.
Like Swords and Fire, there is a strong heavy focus on politics here. But this is a fascinating turnaround from Swords and Fire which focused so heavily on the Serene Empire. Here, we get the deeper window into Vaskandar, and it’s a nice change of pace. If characters negotiating and dealing with political problems doesn’t interest you, you’re gonna struggle. That said, I never ever had a problem with the pacing. Every time I sat down to read a bit, I ended up reading at least three more chapters than I intended.
Caruso does her best to disconnect the two series as well. A lot of years have passed since The Unbound Empire, and though its events do get mentioned, Amalia doesn’t even come up. I think there was maybe one passing reference to Kathe. That’s it. So good on her for stepping away from a cheesy “child of the previous MC” kind of storyline.
Speaking of which, ahhhhh Ryxander. Look, I loved Amalia, don’t get me wrong, but I really love Ryx. They have a lot of similarities, but Ryx is definitely more damaged emotionally. Her broken magic has seriously wounded her, denied her even the barest modicum of human contact, and it’s put a terrible amount of pressure on her to avoid harming others and to appease her family. She has a serious struggle about whether or not to voluntarily take a jess, just so she can have normal human interactions, and her personal arc involves accepting her abilities and powers as part of herself.
The rest of the cast are a lot of fun; they really run the gamut from scene-stealers to people you love to hate. Severin is a bit of a Kathe analog, charming and sly, although I’d say he’s a little more cowardly. He’s struggling to stand up to his brother, the Witch Lord noted above, and his and Ryx’s slow-burn budding romance is so much fun to read. Ryx’s aunt is awful but also family, a terribly real dynamic, and her grandmother the Witch Lord is terrifying in at least ten different ways as the book progresses. There’s an odd chimera that hangs about and makes cryptic and mysterious remarks. The Rookery characters are a fun addition, an ostensibly neutral group of mystery solvers and arcane experts that are very Scooby Doo but with real magic. There’s a childhood friend of Ryx’s, and a nonbinary representative of the Conclave hovering over Ryx’s shoulder. And to be honest, this barely scratches the surface of the secondary characters.
I mentioned above that Vaskandar is the focus here, and there’s so much new worldbuilding to explore. Gloamingard and its gloaming lore are immediately attention-grabbing, because who doesn’t love a creepy castle? We also get a dive into what it’s like to be a descendant of a Witch Lord in their domain, with all the rituals and grudges and ceremonies. On top of that, we get to explore the religion of this setting a little more; Amalia was always swearing by the Graces and the Hells and the Demons in Swords and Fire, but here is where we start getting some real color around that — and ohhhhh is it a doozy.
Also, props to Caruso for going somewhere I honestly wasn’t expecting at the end. I had a bad feeling I knew where things were headed and was pleasantly surprised to be wrong. It’s not a great ending — things are definitely unresolved and overall still worse than at the beginning — but there is hope yet. And also the promise of more terrible things to come.
So basically, if you can’t tell, I am THRILLED to return to Vaskandar, and even more excited about reading this series than I was about Swords and Fire. To be honest, The Obsidian Tower makes me think of a more adult Abhorsen trilogy, and that’s about the highest praise I can give. I can’t wait for the next one!
Grade: 5/5 stars
Memorable Quote:
“I had to stop her. I could try to close the Door, to seal her in there and wait for my grandmother to return, but I had no idea what lay within. It might be a weapon Lamiel could use, a power she could claim, a sleeping nightmare creature she could awaken; I couldn’t leave her in there alone with whatever the Door was meant to keep sensible people away from.
Red light glared in my eyes as the door swung wider. The last thing I wanted to do in all the world was to step across that threshold, but precious seconds were slipping past. I couldn’t let fear stop me, no matter how frantically it clawed at my chest, tearing the breath to ribbons in my lungs. I was a guardian, and the Warden of Gloamingard. I had a duty to protect everyone in this castle from whatever horrors she might unleash.
I plunged through after Lamiel into the Black Tower.”
