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A review by charlotekerstenauthor
Sunbolt by Intisar Khanani
“Justice served with a side of pineapple. That’s what I’m here for.”
So What’s It About? (from her website)
“The winding streets and narrow alleys of Karolene hide many secrets, and Hitomi is one of them. Orphaned at a young age, Hitomi has learned to hide her magical aptitude and who her parents really were. Most of all, she must conceal her role in the Shadow League, an underground movement working to undermine the powerful and corrupt Arch Mage Wilhelm Blackflame.
When the League gets word that Blackflame intends to detain—and execute—a leading political family, Hitomi volunteers to help the family escape. But there are more secrets at play than Hitomi’s, and much worse fates than execution. When Hitomi finds herself captured along with her charges, it will take everything she can summon to escape with her life.”
What I Thought- The F Word
Sunbolt clocks in at around 150 pages, and it’s astonishing to me just how much it manages to fit in that page count. A league of outlaws and criminals trying to overthrow a corrupt mage! Frantic escapes! Betrayals! Heroic sacrifices! Fox boys! Secret magic! Ethical decision making in crisis! New light shed on painful secrets from the past! Vampires and Super Vampires! Sunbolt packs it all in, and the result is a novella that is bursting with adventure and pure YA fantasy goodness.
The story’s protagonist, Hitomi, is a favorite of mine. In the face of tragedy and prejudice due to her biracial identity and magical ability, she’s a scrappy yet deeply thoughtful girl who always tries do the right thing in a world gone wrong. Because of these traits I think of her as a kind of precursor to Inej from Six of Crows, but she definitely has a charm all her own. Ultimately this is a tale about integrity and Hitomi’s commitment to doing the right thing in impossible circumstance after impossible circumstance. To me the best moment in the book is when Hitomi realizes that she cannot escape without Val, her monstrous fellow prisoner, even though he poses a potential threat to her odds of survival:
“My hands slow. I stare blindly at the door. He is weak, just like the fang I left behind in Blackflame’s dungeon. And, just like the fang, he will die in his prison. As much as I tell myself that it will not be I who have killed them—that the blame lies with Kol, or Blackflame, or someone else entirely—the truth is that this is my choice, now: to leave him behind.
And he is letting me go. He has made no attempt to stop me. He hasn’t tried to trick me into turning around so he can catch my gaze and keep his meal from leaving. In truth, he made sure I wasn’t even chained. I’ve been hungry. I know what it feels like when your stomach is so empty it gnaws at itself. I’ve tied a strap around my waist and cinched it tight, because the pressure gives some small relief. Such hunger consumes your awareness, nibbles at the edges of your mind.
I’ve begged, pleaded, stolen—and been beaten—all for a half-rotted fruit. But I’ve never, ever been as hungry as the creature behind me.
I rest my forehead against the door and close my eyes, wishing I could make a cocoon in the darkness behind my eyelids, spin a tiny shelter to keep myself safe from my thoughts. But it’s no use. I’ve already damned one fang to his death because I feared him. I cannot leave this creature behind as well.”
The bond of trust and then friendship that forms between Hitomi and Val is lovely and interesting because of this decision on Hitomi’s part, but it becomes increasingly complex when she takes a massive risk during a deadly fight and summons the sunbolt that gives the book its title and also leaves her close to death, severely burned and bereft of nearly all her memories. The devastation of this loss is handled beautifully, and during the months that follow she must begin to rebuild health and her entire sense of self. Serious consequences for a heroine’s desperate actions? The gradual development of trust and friendship between a male and female character with no sexually charged hate-banter or insta-love in sight? Genuine concern over the cost of violence and what it takes to be a good person? An exciting and well-paced plot without any filler? In my YA fantasy? It’s likelier than you’d think!
So What’s It About? (from her website)
“The winding streets and narrow alleys of Karolene hide many secrets, and Hitomi is one of them. Orphaned at a young age, Hitomi has learned to hide her magical aptitude and who her parents really were. Most of all, she must conceal her role in the Shadow League, an underground movement working to undermine the powerful and corrupt Arch Mage Wilhelm Blackflame.
When the League gets word that Blackflame intends to detain—and execute—a leading political family, Hitomi volunteers to help the family escape. But there are more secrets at play than Hitomi’s, and much worse fates than execution. When Hitomi finds herself captured along with her charges, it will take everything she can summon to escape with her life.”
What I Thought- The F Word
Sunbolt clocks in at around 150 pages, and it’s astonishing to me just how much it manages to fit in that page count. A league of outlaws and criminals trying to overthrow a corrupt mage! Frantic escapes! Betrayals! Heroic sacrifices! Fox boys! Secret magic! Ethical decision making in crisis! New light shed on painful secrets from the past! Vampires and Super Vampires! Sunbolt packs it all in, and the result is a novella that is bursting with adventure and pure YA fantasy goodness.
The story’s protagonist, Hitomi, is a favorite of mine. In the face of tragedy and prejudice due to her biracial identity and magical ability, she’s a scrappy yet deeply thoughtful girl who always tries do the right thing in a world gone wrong. Because of these traits I think of her as a kind of precursor to Inej from Six of Crows, but she definitely has a charm all her own. Ultimately this is a tale about integrity and Hitomi’s commitment to doing the right thing in impossible circumstance after impossible circumstance. To me the best moment in the book is when Hitomi realizes that she cannot escape without Val, her monstrous fellow prisoner, even though he poses a potential threat to her odds of survival:
“My hands slow. I stare blindly at the door. He is weak, just like the fang I left behind in Blackflame’s dungeon. And, just like the fang, he will die in his prison. As much as I tell myself that it will not be I who have killed them—that the blame lies with Kol, or Blackflame, or someone else entirely—the truth is that this is my choice, now: to leave him behind.
And he is letting me go. He has made no attempt to stop me. He hasn’t tried to trick me into turning around so he can catch my gaze and keep his meal from leaving. In truth, he made sure I wasn’t even chained. I’ve been hungry. I know what it feels like when your stomach is so empty it gnaws at itself. I’ve tied a strap around my waist and cinched it tight, because the pressure gives some small relief. Such hunger consumes your awareness, nibbles at the edges of your mind.
I’ve begged, pleaded, stolen—and been beaten—all for a half-rotted fruit. But I’ve never, ever been as hungry as the creature behind me.
I rest my forehead against the door and close my eyes, wishing I could make a cocoon in the darkness behind my eyelids, spin a tiny shelter to keep myself safe from my thoughts. But it’s no use. I’ve already damned one fang to his death because I feared him. I cannot leave this creature behind as well.”
The bond of trust and then friendship that forms between Hitomi and Val is lovely and interesting because of this decision on Hitomi’s part, but it becomes increasingly complex when she takes a massive risk during a deadly fight and summons the sunbolt that gives the book its title and also leaves her close to death, severely burned and bereft of nearly all her memories. The devastation of this loss is handled beautifully, and during the months that follow she must begin to rebuild health and her entire sense of self. Serious consequences for a heroine’s desperate actions? The gradual development of trust and friendship between a male and female character with no sexually charged hate-banter or insta-love in sight? Genuine concern over the cost of violence and what it takes to be a good person? An exciting and well-paced plot without any filler? In my YA fantasy? It’s likelier than you’d think!