The Keep Within by J.L. Worrad
Adult | Fantasy
Published by: Titan Books
Release date: 28/03/2023
Length: 488
Rating: ★★★★☆
Goodreads | Waterstones | Publisher
Synopsis:
When Sir Harrance ‘Harry’ Larksdale, bastard brother of the king, falls for a mysterious lad from the mountains, he is unwillingly caught up in a chaotic world of court intrigue and murderous folk tales. Meanwhile Queen Carmotta Il’Lunadella, First-Queen of the Brintland, needs to save her life and her unborn child. With the Third-Queen plotting against her, and rumours of coups rocking the court, Carmotta can rely only on her devious mind and venomous wit.
But deep within the walls of Becken Keep squats the keep-within – patient, timeless, and evil. To speak of the keep-within outside the walls of Becken Keep guarantees your bizarre and agonising demise within nine days. All the while, people fearfully whisper the name Red Marie: a bloodied demon with rusted nails for teeth and swinging scythes who preys on the innocent.
Harry and Carmotta are clinging to their dreams, their lives, by threads. And, beneath all, the keep-within awaits.
I’m not going to lie, I wasn’t too sure how I was going to feel about this one after reading the first chapter, I wasn’t sure if I was keen on the writing style or the general vibe of the book. I definitely wanted to keep going though and give it more of a chance, because the synopsis really did intrigue me. The more I read, the more I got into the writing style, and I ended up really enjoying it. This book follows multiple points of view, and each one was really distinct, I always knew whose point of view I was reading from.
I think another reason I wasn’t sure at first was because it really just throws you straight in. As far as I’m aware, this book is a companion to the authors previous book, and I imagine if I had read that first I would have had some more information about this world and the types of people in it. However, this didn’t bother me for too long at all. I really felt that J.L. Worrad fed the information to the reader really naturally throughout the first bit of the book, and it didn’t end up taking long for me to feel like I knew what was happening.
The characters were all really interesting, there wasn’t a single point of view I didn’t enjoy reading from. My favourite point of view was definitely Harry Larksdale, there were so many times during his chapters where I genuinely laughed out loud, and I just really liked his voice. I also found Red Marie’s point of view really interesting to read from, and I thought they were a really interesting character.
I had a really great time reading this book, and I’m definitely glad I gave it a go as it is one I probably wouldn’t have picked up otherwise.
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