Atenia by Jay Requard (2023)
The old king is dead, and a new queen-regent rises on the right of her young son to be king. Fransica de Veard's seizure of the throne is swift and violent, and she rules tyrannically for fifteen years. The people suffer.
A rebellion forms in the underbelly of Atenia. Teenage Haidra’s father Arverin is a part of it, and when he is taken, she fulfills his duties to the rebellion in his absence. She joins a band of mages and follows them onto the warpath, burning bridges and cutting ties with any hope for safety and anonymity. The dissidents must weather the iron fist of the queen-regent’s knights, the chaos of an unstable kingdom, and a people conditioned by a decade and a half of oppression.
Atenia is an intriguing high fantasy with a lot of good ideas. The exploration of the ways that living under tyranny can tear apart families, friendships, and communities is ambitious and, for the most part, accurate. Distrust is sewn, and a desire for self-preservation often leads to bloodshed. The magic system is also easy to wrap your head around. One might even throw in a few extra imaginary points for the general cool factor, especially with that spooky, incorporeal apocalypse preacher in the sky.
While those aspects of the novel are enjoyable, it would not be honest to say that Atenia was a very gripping read. The characters lack a certain spark, and the prose isn’t doing much more than the bare minimum. It’s fast-paced in a way that doesn’t suit the genre. We don’t get enough time to get to know the protagonist’s character, or the character of Atenia beyond its fear under Fransica's reign. Moments that should be full of drama and betrayal fall flat from a lack of proper characterization.
Not a bad novel by any means — certainly competently written — but not exceptional either.
