REVIEW: Asunder by Kerstin Hall
Well, Kerstin Hall can probably expect some of my therapy bills in her inbox soon, because I think Asunder just broke me in the best way possible. Brimming with arcane horrors, uncanny atmosphere, darkly wondrous magic, divine meddling, broken yet loveable characters, and brutal emotional gut punches, this is truly the fantasy horror adventure of my darkest dreams.
In a foolishly desperate act in her late teens, Karys Eska bargained her soul away to a terrifying eldritch being, which granted her the abilities of a Deathspeaker; she can communicate with the newly departed through touch, and uses her gifts to investigate suspicious deaths around the city. However, her latest job suddenly goes horribly wrong, leaving her with a dying stranger accidentally attached to her shadow. Haunted and hunted by horrors both internal and external, they will have to learn to trust each other and travel their faded empire to find a way to rip their bond apart, before they are both torn asunder by their looming demise.
Holy smokes, does Hall know how to open a story with an irresistible hook! Her visually and emotionally evocative prose immediately sucked me straight into this dark miasma of a story, and I was instantly obsessed with all the wondrously weird intricacies of this disturbingly haunting yet beautifully mesmerising world.
There’s almost a bit of a technologically advanced aesthetic to this fantasy world, yet it somehow never loses its darkly whimsical air of wonder and magic. Cosmic horrors, semi-sentient beastly transport systems, meddling heralds, arcane artefacts, abominable constructs, and deathspeaker magic; Asunder is truly exploding with wild imagination, and the all-consuming eerie atmosphere just immediately grabbed me by the throat and didn’t let me go until the very end.
From the moment I met my fearsome woman Karys Eska, I was honestly a lost cause. With her sharp snarkiness and well-earned ‘fuck around and find out’ attitude, she reminded me of all the best parts of some of my all-time favourite characters like Mia Corvere (Nevernight), Gideon (Gideon the Ninth), and Eska (Along the Razor’s Edge), except with a less foul mouth. Life has tried to beat her down without remorse and her walls are up high, but she is still an absolute force to be reckoned with and has a heart of gold hiding behind the tough mask.
I absolutely loved exploring this dark world in all its beauty and terror through her eyes, and her strong voice and compelling emotional journey kept me rooted throughout this increasingly wild quest. Despite its addictively smooth pacing and riveting ‘ticking clock’ element, Asunder almost has a bit of an episodic feel to its storytelling. Yet each little ‘side quest’, if you will, only helped organically expand the vibrant world, deepen the lore, heighten the stakes, build out the characters’ backstories and strengthen the gripping emotional core of this narrative (for better or worse, my poor heart).
You see, while this is absolutely Karys’ story first and foremost, I loved how each member of the motley crew that she (unintentionally and sort of begrudgingly?) picked up along the way absolutely gets their time to shine as well. Through the vivacious scholar Winola, we get such a fascinating look into the dizzyingly complex yet darkly wondrous ‘workings’ magic system, while Karys’ childhood friend Haeki blasted open the more mythological aspects of this world through her status as Favoured of one of the capricious heralds. Plus, we get treated to some delicious sapphic tension, so I am always here for that.
However, Karys’ complicated yet amusing dynamic with her mysterious yet cheery shadow companion Ferain (who is a GEM and has now become my new standard for any future shadow daddies, just saying) was absolutely the heart of this story for me, and I never knew I needed the ‘only one head’ trope until Kerstin Hall introduced me to it here; don’t get me wrong, the sloooow-burn romance is just about the most minor and least important aspect of Asunder, yet I was truly gobbling up every single scrap of the simmering tension and playful banter. The way that he slowly and gently breaks through Karys’ carefully built walls was so touching to see, and I loved how Hall wove in themes of (childhood) trauma, grief, trust, redemption and healing through their tentatively developing bond.
I honestly can’t remember the last time I was this deeply engrossed in a story, and I am not kidding when I say that Asunder quite literally tore my soul asunder and left me physically, mentally and emotionally unwell by the end. This story truly just kept zigging whenever I expected it to zag, and I deeply admire Hall for not pulling any punches, especially with that brutally bittersweet cliffhanger of an ending; I needed book 2 yesterday already!
If my unapologetic gushing hadn’t given it away yet, Asunder has instantly become my favourite book I have read this year so far, and if it has any flaws, I sure as hell didn’t notice any of them. If you like the sound of an emotionally-driven fantasy horror that beautifully blends its darkness with a tender heart, then I can’t recommend Asunder highly enough; it’s disturbing yet beautiful, traumatic yet entertaining, epic yet intimate, and it will absolutely leave an irreversible mark on you, whether you like it or not.
Thank you to Tordotcom for providing me with an eARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own. Asunder is scheduled for release on August 20th, 2024.
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