Relics of Ruin

• Author: Erin M. Evans
• Genre: Fantasy
• Publication Date: April 30, 2024
• Publisher: Orbit
• Series: Books of the Usurper #2

Thank you to Orbit and Angela Man for sending me a copy of this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

5 stars

CONTENT WARNING: blood, gore, murder, violence

FROM A RISING STAR IN EPIC FANTASY COMES THE CAPTIVATING SECOND NOVEL IN A TRILOGY FEATURING AN UNLIKELY TEAM WHO MUST FIND A WAY TO WORK TOGETHER AND SOLVE AN EMPIRE-SPANNING MYSTERY TO DEFEND THE LAST PLACE THEY CALL HOME.

The empire of Semilla has been saved—for now. Amadea Gintanas and her archivists solved a brutal murder, dispelling a grave conspiracy against the empire in the process. But danger still looms. When Quill and Richa discover the missing bones of a saint in a roadside shrine, the empire’s fragile equilibrium is put at risk. How this precious relic vanished from its sealed vault is a mystery. The threat posed by this theft is all too clear.

The archivists must once again unearth the clues—and quickly. For an old enemy is gathering strength beyond the Salt Wall. And it will not hold him for long.

I read the first book in this series last year, and loved it. When I saw that the next book in the trilogy was available, I couldn’t wait to get a copy. Unfortunately, it took me 8 months to get around to reading it, but it was well worth the wait. I read this in a combination of audiobook and hard copy format. 

This book starts out in the best possible way—with a summary of book 1. While I often do a quick reread of books in a series before starting the newest one, this was a heavy, complex, and very involved story, so the summary was comprehensive. I quickly discovered that this is the kind of book I struggle with on audio, and wound up reading this mostly in the hard copy format. 

The plot picks up shortly after the events of the last book, and fills us back in on what our characters have been doing, and they’re all up to something besides the main mystery. There are flashbacks to Amadea’s upbringing, and how she is coping with all of the links to her past. Quill and Richa are both struggling with an attraction to someone they work with, while Yinii is struggling to avoid the spiral and be able to work with ink again, and meeting with a sorcerer to see if her questions can be answered. Tunuk is struggling in his own way, staying away from family and friends as he focuses on uncovering truths he isn’t sure he wants to know. These are the main characters, and we get to see POV chapters from them. I loved the POV switches, since it lets us learn more about all of the characters by seeing them in a different light. And Evans is fantastic at writing characters, because the voice is so easy to determine in each chapter, and they’re all so unique that there isn’t a lot of overlap in personality.

This is a book with inherent diversity, and it feels so natural to see people of different appearance and backgrounds well-represented in the story. As an empire, Semilla has absorbed people from all of its protectorates, leading to a diverse society like you’d find in any large metropolitan location (or empire capital). There are characters who are explicitly Black, while Quill is Asian-coded, and there are people who are bisexual, poly, and either asexual or aromantic. I particularly liked how differentiated each of the ethnicities are written—Tunuk’s people live in a poly family situation, with responsibilities being shared and the group being very close, causing his family consternation about his lack of interest in romantic or sexual attachments.

As a complex and multilayered story, there is a lot going on in the empire, the archives, and the life of each character. The main plot is figuring out what the deal is with the missing bones, but that leads into more questions as the archivists race to find out how the bones were stolen, and determine whose skeleton replaced the saint’s bones. Yinii is trying to figure out how someone knows they are a sorcerer, and working with an imprisoned sorcerer in an effort to get answers, for the most part unsuccessfully. The clan chiefs and Empress are ready to go to war, and the archivists are navigating potential new romances as they work on this main mystery.

Book two delves much more deeply into Semillan society. Readers learn a lot more about the clans and how they work, as well as exploring the magic system of affinities, sorcerers, and spirals. I felt as though this helped avoid the feeling of info dumps, as the author slowly leaks new information through the pages of the story. I especially liked that it wasn’t all shared in the first book, so we get to discover new aspects of society as they came up.

Overall, this was an outstanding book. I took my time with it, and it is a chonk, but it was so interesting and well-paced that it didn’t have any periods where the story or plot lagged. In fact, the plot stays upfront throughout the story, while the subplots and side stories never took away from the genius of this book. There is a cliffhanger ending that makes me need the next book to be written and made available soon, but hopefully I won’t have to wait too long. I recommend this one to anyone who likes epic fantasy, political subplots, intricate stories, and fantasy where the author isn’t afraid to get complex or write an expansive story.

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