Alchemised

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

In this riveting dark fantasy debut, a woman with missing memories fights to survive a war-torn world of necromancy and alchemy--and the man tasked with unearthing the deepest secrets of her past.

This stunning hardcover edition features a deluxe jacket with gold foil on the front and a full-color illustration on the reverse, gorgeous designed endpapers, a gold foil case stamp, and, from acclaimed artist Avendell, a black-and-white interior illustration.

" What is it you think you're protecting in that brain of yours? The war is over. Holdfast is dead. The Eternal Flame extinguished. There's no one left for you to save."

Once a promising alchemist, Helena Marino is now a prisoner--of war and of her own mind. Her Resistance friends and allies have been brutally murdered, her abilities suppressed, and the world she knew destroyed.

In the aftermath of a long war, Paladia's new ruling class of corrupt guild families and depraved necromancers, whose vile undead creatures helped bring about their victory, holds Helena captive.

According to Resistance records, she was a healer of little importance within their ranks. But Helena has inexplicable memory loss of the months leading up to her capture, making her enemies wonder: Is she truly as insignificant as she appears, or are her lost memories hiding some vital piece of the Resistance's final gambit?

To uncover the memories buried deep within her mind, Helena is sent to the High Reeve, one of the most powerful and ruthless necromancers in this new world. Trapped on his crumbling estate, Helena's fight--to protect her lost history and to preserve the last remaining shreds of her former self--is just beginning. For her prison and captor have secrets of their own . . . secrets Helena must unearth, whatever the cost.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Kirkus Book Review

Using mystery and romance elements in a nonlinear narrative, SenLinYu's debut is a doorstopper of a fantasy that follows a woman with missing memories as she navigates through a war-torn realm in search of herself. Helena Marino is a talented young healer living in Paladia--the "Shining City"--who has been thrust into a brutal war against an all-powerful necromancer and his army of Undying, loyal henchmen with immortal bodies, and necrothralls, reanimated automatons. When Helena is awakened from stasis, a prisoner of the necromancer's forces, she has no idea how long she has been incarcerated--or the status of the war. She soon finds herself a personal prisoner of Kaine Ferron, the High Necromancer's "monster" psychopath who has sadistically killed hundreds for his master. Ordered to recover Helena's buried memories by any means necessary, the two polar opposites--Helena and Kaine, healer and killer--end up discovering much more as they begin to understand each other through shared trauma. While necromancy is an oft-trod subject in fantasy novels, the author gives it a fresh feel--in large part because of their superb worldbuilding coupled with unforgettable imagery throughout: "[The necromancer] lay reclined upon a throne of bodies. Necrothralls, contorted and twisted together, their limbs transmuted and fused into a chair, moving in synchrony, rising and falling as they breathed in tandem, squeezing and releasing around him…[He] extended his decrepit right hand, overlarge with fingers jointed like spider legs." Another noteworthy element is the complex dynamic between Helena and Kaine. To say that these two characters shared the gamut of intense emotions would be a vast understatement. Readers will come for the fantasy and stay for the romance. Although the melodrama sometimes is a bit much, the superb worldbuilding and intricate plotline make this a must-read. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.