C.T. Bryce

Between Shadow and Flame by C.T. Bryce

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I started this novel thinking, well, it's another retelling of one of the oldest tropes: boy who doesn't know who he really is searches for his real father and finds his true self in a distant fantasy kingdom. And it is, but C.T. Bryce has found new things to say and this book is a brilliantly reimagined take on the theme. In fact, it's astonishing for a debut novel. It's assured, deft, and works on many levels.

The boy in question is named David and he starts off in a stereotypical modern urban world. But soon he's off to a place called Fyrnlendh which feels very much like some forgotten corner of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. (Even its name seems lo take off from German "fern+land" i.e. "a far country.") And while he encounters plenty of darkness and magic and creatures of fantasy, he's very much grounded in the present, and we're as much in the world of dysfunctional families and manipulating relatives familiar in many a literary novel.

I would hate to give away too much of this plot but the author never takes a familiar direction without ringing a change on it. The protagonist is very well drawn — precocious, questioning, conficted, feeling very deeply, with hints of queer identity that may be developed in a later volume of what seems to be a trilogy. Indeed the first book is really just the setup. This is clearly a writer to watch.



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