Katharine J. Adams’s debut novel, Tonight, I Burn, (Orbit – expected 7 Nov 2023) echoes with legends, fairytales and folklore that came before. While I heard Hades and Persephone and Beauty and the Beast the most; I wouldn’t call this a retelling of either. Adams is a reader first, and it shows beautifully in her writing. This was a very impressive debut, and I hope the spark carries to the second in the series, Tonight, I Bleed.
Penny is a thorn witch, third in line the throne. While she remembers what life was like before the Warden, she’s spent more time under his control after he destroys all that was colorful and beautiful than out of it. Her grandmother is under the Warden’s control. Her father has become one of the Warden’s Gilded – a process that strips a person of their soul and binds them to the Warden’s command. Her mother is just trying to keep her three daughters out of trouble and alive.
The Warden needs the thorn witches, Penny included, for they can walk the veil between life and Death – using their magic to weave his immortality. Each night, a witch burns at the pyre and walks in Death. If all goes well, the witch can cross back over the veil and return home to burn another night, but each walk into Death takes a bit of their soul. Just before Penny is to have her first walk, her sister doesn’t return. Penny will risk everything and break every rule to save her, and Penny walks into Death alone and in secret. There, she makes a deal with a beautiful and dangerous man who awakes confusing feelings in her.
As she seeks to honor the deal that saved her sister but risked her soul, a rebellion is brewing – and Penny, with her rare obsidian crystal, is in the thick of it. The Warden wants her as a pet because her talents exceed those of the average thorn witch. The Resistance wants her because her dark crystal magic can forge the spell that can change their lives forever.
The romance is a bit clunky, but it takes backseat to parallel high stakes – the Resistance and the deal to save her sister – which I prefer. Some aspects, particularly those involving Penny’s father, are rushed, but I imagine there will be more flesh to those bones in the second book of the series. Overall, this debut far exceeded my expectations.
Read this book.
*A huge thanks to the publisher for gifting me this early copy!
A Girl Named Tommi 