Rhia has a delivery to make in a small town on the prairie, days' walk from anywhere, and when she arrives, she finds herself pulled into the search for a missing girl. Despite her desire for solitude and avoidance of Temple practices, Rhia connects with the locals and her own suppressed talents, only to be caught off guard by undercurrents of deception and glimpses of a monster.

I was pleasantly surprised by this fantasy novella, which introduces a world and magical system which feels familiar and lived-in yet subtly unique. Perhaps this is due to the relatively low-stakes plot, the strong characterization, and a vivid sense of place. Few debut publications read as skillfully as this, so I look forward to seeing what the author publishes next.

A great story which I consumed in one sitting.
A world physically not that much unlike our own before mechanisation, however steeped in magic and the supernatural with ‘water and earth mages’ held in high esteem to keep the village people in food and clean clear water.
The Greyhowler is a beast who tracks down and eats people who tell lies. It is a creature made up to scare children into being good; or is it real?
The landscape and characters have just the right mix of realism to make it all totally believable and enjoyable. Some parts could give the younger reader nightmares but overall I would recommend it to all readers and would enjoy reading more when they are written. ( )

Well, that's annoying - I read this, I remember it quite well (a month later), I _thought_ I had reviewed it but if so I can't find where I wrote it (certainly not here). So - this is what I remember and remember having written.
A rich and interesting story, especially for being so short. We get a _lot_ about the backgrounds of the characters and therefore about the world - seriously good world-building, with nary an infodump in sight. The story itself is good - weird, but good. Rapidly changing opinions about several characters - she's good, he's a nuisance, no he's desperate and she's...I don't know what she is. Insane, obsessed, desperate in her own way... no one here is simple, everyone has depths. Even the greyhowler.
And throughout the story, I was trying to think if I had read anything else in this universe and planning to go look for more as soon as I finished. Turns out this is her first book (wow!), so I'll be waiting a bit for more - but waiting eagerly, I would love to see more in this world or probably anything she writes. ( )

{stand-alone novella; fantasy, LTER}(2023)

Rhia is a courier for the Three Kingdoms Courier Service and takes pride in doing her job well. We meet her as she walks for twenty five days across the prairie to the (very) small town of Cerretour. When she arrives, she discovers that there is a drought in the area and despite her strong water Talent she can't feel any ground water. The headman, to whom she has to deliver the letter, has gone to the next town for help so Rhia has to wait for him to return before she can deliver her letter and while waiting, she helps to look for a girl who is missing from the town. However, there is a sense of unease as a strange cry wails through the night when she first arrives and she's told it's a greyhowler - a mythical creature which hunts down deceivers but which engenders a superstitious fear in Rhia.

This story worked fairly well as a novella - though I would have liked to have found out a bit more about how the Temple and Talents work. I did find that the occasional profanity (to use Rhia's word) and colloquialisms threw me out of the story and its world for a second or two especially as it was otherwise a fairly gentle narrative with a lot of descriptions of nature on the prairie.

The story itself is a bit more tense as the elements resolve into a mystery and Rhia finds herself having to unravel it but I didn't feel that it was as tense as it may have been meant to be. It could be that I was reading too fast (there were only about 160 pages to this story on my e-reader; easy to gobble down in one sitting) but a bit more detail might have made the mystery aspect more cohesive and built up the atmosphere a bit more.

All in all I enjoyed this novella, which I received via LibraryThing Early Reviewers. If there are more adventures set in this world, I'd be happy to read about them.

(November 2023)
3-3.5 stars ( )

Good introduction to a wider universe. I'm not normally a fan of novellas, but this is the right length for this story. I'm not clear how much if anything of the 'Courier novels' have been written, but the author has created an interesting world for them.

Riah is a Courier - one of the trusted few given important messages (important to the sender rich enough to afford the fee) to deliver anywhere in the known world. It's a basic low fantasy rural setting without widespread transport options so villages and towns beyond a day or so's walk are out of contact. And so a courier walks. Religion and magic are also prominent, calling forth elements at need but rare Talents have more power.

Riah arrives at her destination a small community many weeks away from the nearest city. To learn that her destination client is away and due back within a day or two. She elects to wait in relative comfort compared to the road. However the village is draught-struck and her Water Talent could be very useful, but she's a restless soul. The Greyhowler is not a werewolf as first expected, but the local version of a Temple myth, a monster who eats liars. The villagers are surprisingly believing.

I enjoyed this, the pacing worked well, enough details about the world are revealed as needed, with consistency across the world-building (although there's no mention of the smith required for the villages pipework) and the characters interact well. I'm always taken with the loner heroes slightly aloof but can't help being drawn in to other's problems.

Will read more of the novels when they are written. ( )