UNLOCK THE DARK

A teenager fights for love and her family using all the power she has.

Eighteen-year-old Elia is a Conjurista in Isalindra with the ability to magically open any lock. Limited by her age—at 19, she’ll legally be an adult—Elia has, at her ill papa’s request, been using an elixir to keep him alive, siphoning off his magic to create doors to other places for customers of her family’s travel shop. In this way, she’s managed to support her four younger siblings. When her 8-year-old brother, Myron, is touched by god of death Morthanos and turned into a Deathfate, Elia decides to return to Serratura at the behest of handsome scholar Prince Trystoferian, who agrees to support her family in return for her taking this risk—years earlier she was banished from the kingdom under pain of death. Trys is desperate to find the Scroll of Peace in the Serraturan Great Library, and Elia believes the library contains a scroll that will save Myron from the misery of being a Deathfate. But when things don’t go as planned, Elia must try to save both Myron and Trys, whom she’s grown to feel more for than she expected. Unfortunately, their romance comes across as forced, and serious moments are interrupted with awkward exchanges that don’t quite land. The worldbuilding is immensely creative, however, and the community supporting Elia and her siblings is appealing. Main characters are cued white.

An enjoyable debut set in an originally wrought world.