WICKED ONYX

A young sorcerer enters an intense and brutal training academy to restore her powers and learn the truth about her family in Cassidy’s fantasy novel.

Twenty-one-year-old Anamaya Onyx’s matriarchal side has been cursed for generations. Her great-great-grandaunt, Dharma Onyx, committed the heinous crime of destroying an incantor’s bloodline, compelling the ruling Arcanum Imperium to lock away the sorcerous powers of the entire Onyx bloodline. Dharma’s crime made the Onyx name an anathema; Anamaya and her mother Ariana have adopted the fake surname Denton in order to avoid complete ostracization. After Ariana dies following a long battle with a terminal illness, Anamaya finds Dharma’s journal, in which the disgraced ancestor claims she was framed and that a book called the Libra Veritas will prove her innocence. The Libra Veritas, according to Dharma’s journal entries, is hidden away in the library vaults at Nightsbridge Academy. Anamaya discovers a law that prohibits allowing an Arcanus (magical) bloodline to die out in order to protect all Arcanus bloodlines’ connection to the central source of magic known as the Weave. As Anamaya is the final member of the Onyx bloodline, she realizes she can make a case to have her powers restored. To do so, as well as learn the truth about Dharma Onyx, she’ll need to go to Nightsbridge Academy—a fortress and training center that conscripts members from certain magical and human bloodlines to contain and control the Horrors that have crept into their world. Anamaya attends classes on combat, Horrors, and the history of Nightsbridge, but her last name stokes the ire of many at the academy, and the Horrors seem to be targeting her, specifically. Cassidy delivers a spellbinding fantasy story that incorporates traditional lore from a plethora of cultures alongside original creatures and magic systems. Readers will be captivated by the author’s meticulous and richly detailed worldbuilding and entertained by narrator Anamaya’s wry humor (“Serendipity, you beautiful bitch”); the supporting characters are equally engaging. While the main story is compelling, readers may find a romantic subplot, which often relegates the otherwise self-sufficient protagonist to damsel-in-distress status, to be predictable and cliched.

A well-developed and thoroughly entertaining fantasy novel that combines traditional and original lore.