The Necromancer’s Light (Book 1 of the Radiance trilogy) by Tavia Lark is one of those feel-good romantic fantasy books I keep coming back to. I love the characters. I love the world. I love the story. It’s a beautiful weave of love and redemption and magic and action.
Shae is a necromancer on a quest to banish a powerful demon. He hires Arthur, a disgraced paladin of the Radiant Order who is serving a year of penance, to protect him from various monsters on the journey and provide the radiant human warmth his frozen soul needs.
Alongside the demon-banishing goal, there’s the romance between Shae and Arthur. Shae (who is young, not much more than twenty) has had a tough, lonely life, and I love the way Arthur’s generosity of spirit cracks Shae’s prickly exterior. After they get together, there’s a series of scorching scenes, then the story gets moving again.
In The Necromancer’s Light, we get to know some of the paladins of the Radiant Order, who are hunting Ronan, the man responsible for Arthur’s disgrace. We also meet some of the River Swords, a mercenary group with outposts in different cities. All these characters are unique and memorable. I particularly love Georgia, captain of the River Swords. And I’ll add the audiobook narrator, Kai Rubio, does a brilliant job with all the voices.
I also really like the magic system in this world. Some people are born with innate magic, some join the various churches and form contracts with the different gods to gain divine magic, some (fewer) bond with demons (an unpopular choice). As a series, the Radiance trilogy explores various aspects of this.
To sum up, The Necromancer’s Light is a feel-good MM romantic fantasy (romantasy) that has a few dark moments without getting too dark. It’s become a favourite of mine — I must’ve read or listened at least three times by now, and I’m not done yet!
Ellen Gregory 