#roanne lau

[rowynnellis]

Huge congratulations to the @roannelau who’s book ‘The Serpent Called Mercy’ just won this years Aurealis Award! I had the honour of illustrating the cover and watching how well received it’s been all over the world has been wonderful 🥰 Hopefully the first of many more, her work deserves all the recognition! 💚

[wearethekat]

January Book Reviews: The Serpent Called Mercy by Roanne Lau

I received a copy of this book from DAW Publishing via Netgalley in exchange for a fair review. Publish date March 25th.

I requested this book because I was intrigued by the Malaysian Chinese inspired setting and gladiatorial focused plot. In The Serpent Called Mercy, Lythlet and her best friend Desil are desperately poor and struggling to repay their punishingly high debt to a usurer. Joining the Conquessor Games to fight cursed animals might pay enough to allow them to escape--but the manipulative Matchmaster has taken an interest in Lythlet, and is set on entangling her in the city's underworld...

My favorite part of The Serpent Called Mercy was the characters. Gladiatorial games are a hot plot element, and I was a little worried that Lythlet would turn out to be the tiresome Celaena Sardothien type--the most attractive to men, the best ever at fighting, the most feminine, constantly making little quips... But prickly, awkward Lythlet isn't like that at all. She's a clever accountant with a childhood stutter and a near-Holmesian eye for detail. There's a great scene early on in the book where Lythlet gets a glimpse of the matchmaster's notes on her star potential, and finds that he sees her as dead-eyed person who speaks strangely. The heart of the book is Lythlet's completely platonic relationship with her childhood friend, Desil. Desil is an interesting character in his own right, with his pious devotion to the Wardens, the saintlike intercessors to the creators, and his devotion to nonviolence to the point of financial ruin. It's very refreshing to read a book where there's no romantic plotline whatsoever, and it's emphasized that the most important bond for both Lythlet and Desil is to each other.

This book is set entirely within the multicultural city-state where our protagonists live. The glimpse we get into the glowing beehive lamp maintenance at the beginning of the book is fascinating. The focus on the punishing cycle of grinding poverty that traps Lythlet and Desil was also well done, and it was a nice touch that the bill that initially got them into debt was medical bills they couldn't afford. However, my overall impression of the worldbuilding was that it was a bit spare, like an underdecorated room. There are some really great details, but almost every element mentioned becomes plot relevant later. There isn't much of a sense of a wider world outside of what's directly relevant to the protagonists. It doesn't help that the book tends towards slightly wooden, over-ornate prose that sometimes falls flat. The narrative voice can't quite pull off phrases like "Indeed, there was conflict scrawled across his mien."

I also found that the plot tended to resolve conflict too easily, which spoiled the tension a bit. Major plot points are resolved completely offpage, and particularly the political elements are a bit too tidily disposed. I can accept two youths from the slums sucessfully taking out ferocious monsters with no training, but I can't accept political intrigue, slumlord bosses, and blackmail being that quickly and neatly solved.

A book that refreshingly centers platonic relationships in a unique setting, but sometimes resolves conflicts a bit too easily. Still, The Serpent Called Mercy was a compelling debut, and I'll be keeping an eye out for whatever Lau writes next.