THE KEEPER'S SIX - Kate Elliott


 Esther is a mother and grandmother. Her son has been kidnapped and she's headed to The Beyond - an alien landscape between worlds. Time and space react differently here. The Beyond would be difficult enough to traverse but Esther and her Hex (think 'traveling D&D party of wizards') have been banned from The Beyond the the ruling council, known as The Concilium.

But Esther hears the cries of her son, calling out for help, and she'll do anything, go anywhere, face off against anyone, to rescue him.

The Concilium isn't the only danger in The Beyond. Dragonlords and Darkness may defeat them before they can rescue Esther's son. Most troubling though is an old crime come back to haunt her - the reason she's been banned from the region in the first place.

This is about as average a scifi/fantasy read as you can get. I thought we might get a fast-paced, rollicking fantasy given its brevity (this book is under 200 pages) but I never felt as though I was involved. The characters were strangers to me through the entire book and the quest, while understandable (a mother who will do anything for her child) just wasn't exciting.

There's a lot of time spent world-building, which was moderately fun, though a 'world in between' is a pretty old scifi trope. The world building means that we get a lot of information dumped on us early (there isn't time to let it come to us slowly) which may be why the characters didn't mean much to me - I was too busy getting the low-down on the space instead of the people.

This did nothing to make me want to read any more adventures with Esther and her Hex nor any more from Kate Elliott, though I wouldn't turn such a book away if a friend gave one to me.

Looking for a good book? The Keeper's Six by Kate Elliott is a very average scifi/fantasy that uses common tropes and very unremarkable characters.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

2-1/2 stars

* * * * * * *

The Keeper's Six

author: Kate Elliott

publisher: Tordotcom

ISBN: 9781250769077

hardcover, 197 pages

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