Friday 15 January 2021

This Golden Flame by Emily Victoria

Orphaned and forced to serve her country’s ruling group of scribes, Karis wants nothing more than to find her brother, long ago shipped away. But family bonds don’t matter to the Scriptorium, whose sole focus is unlocking the magic of an ancient automaton army.

In her search for her brother, Karis does the seemingly impossible—she awakens a hidden automaton. Intelligent, with a conscience of his own, Alix has no idea why he was made. Or why his father—their nation’s greatest traitor—once tried to destroy the automatons.

Suddenly, the Scriptorium isn’t just trying to control Karis; it’s hunting her. Together with Alix, Karis must find her brother…and the secret that’s held her country in its power for centuries.

This is a fantastic novel set in an imagined world, where creatures something like robots are controlled with runes.

I did get a bit confused about the mechanisms here; apparently, anything powered by runes has a tome, and you have to write the runes in the tome to make anything happen. Most items have their very own tome that's the only one that works on them. But very early on Karis steals a random tome and tries to use it on a door. So the door didn't need its own one? I just didn't follow the system very well, which is a shame because it was really clever.

The rest of the novel is brilliant; excellent characters, great story, wonderful descriptions. I really enjoyed reading it and I look forward to being able to talk about it with other people. I'm sure I'm missing something simple about the magic system! 

I'm really looking forward to reading the next book set in this fantastic world.


This Golden Flame publishes on the 2nd February, 2021.

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