eARC Review: Memoria by J.J. Fischer
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POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD for Calor and Lumen. Please proceed at your own risk.
Release date: 10 December 2024
Rating: 5/5
Synopsis: Would you save a life if you knew it would destroy another?
In the deeply divided world of Caldera, nothing is as it seems. Taken captive by a faceless enemy, Sephone Winter fights to reclaim her soul as her gift spirals out of control and the deadly poison coursing through her veins begins to exact its terrible vengeance.
Meanwhile, Dorian and Cass are forced into an uneasy alliance in order to find the woman they both love . . . a woman who has all but vanished from the face of the earth, along with the Reliquary. Finding her becomes impossible as the identity of their greatest adversary continues to elude them.
When Caldera’s past catches up with the trio’s future, Sephone, Dorian, and Cass are forced to make decisions that threaten everything and everyone they care about. Each of them is offered a chance to sacrifice their own happiness for the sake of the other—but will they take it? And what will it cost them in the end?
The Nightingale Trilogy is a fantasy transformation of Hans Christian Andersen's beloved 1843 tale The Nightingale, with echoes of the myths of Hades and Persephone.
Review
Buckle up, bookish folk, it’s going to be a crazy, emotional ride. Memoria wraps The Nightingale Trilogy up with a nice little bow, and it’s not a neat one. Jaws will drop. Tears will stream. It’s madness and chaos and holy cowness. If you love emotional fantasy with a touch of romance and no spice, grab a copy of this trilogy today (you can find them here direct from Enclave, on Hoopla if your library offers that service, or please feel free to request a copy of them for your local library) and get started. A word of warning, however. If you haven’t read any Fischer books yet, these may be the gateway books to take you down The Fischer rabbit hole.
Even the slightest little hint of stuff can be spoilers, so I will endeavor to keep specific feelings out of it and focus on the general. Memoria picks up just a short span of time after Lumen leaves readers shocked, and it doesn’t stop until the last word of the Acknowledgments. I said, “dude,” and “what,” and all kinds of other loud pronouncements constantly as I read this, startling everyone and every cat around me. Fischer saved ALL of those moments for Memoria, it seems.
One of my favorite things about reading Fischer’s books—and since I began this trilogy, I’ve read nearly all of them—lies in the artful depiction of the inner struggles of each character. Dorian fights with his grief. Cass fights with his sense of self worth. Sephone fights her own gift—which others use for harm. Readers will also meet some new characters in this concluding book that just season the motley crew with salt. No spoilers, though. Fischer’s characters number among some of the best characters I’ve read. Each character possesses a pronounced sense of morality balanced with a fallibility innate in all humans. By the end of the books—and the series—readers may just grow along with them. In the end, that’s what stories are supposed to do for readers. Grow us. Change us. Make us more empathetic. The Nightingale Trilogy does that. It did it for me, that’s for sure.
Readers who pick this book up won’t waste their time. It was a pleasure and a privilege to have found these books and read them. More books like these need to grace the end caps of popular book buying spots.
My thanks to the lovely J. J. Fischer and Enclave Publishing for the eARC, for which I willingly give my own, honest opinion.
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