I thought this was a great story. I love it when the female main character isn't really a good person, and that can be really hard to find in books.

‘The Return of the Sorceress’ by Silvia Moreno-Garcia's is a dark fantasy novella about revenge.

Yalxis is the deposed Supreme Mistress of the Guild of Sorcerers. She is on a journey to reclaim her magic and the diamond heart which fuels it, and get revenge on her ex-lover. When we meet her, she is injured in a city from her childhood. The story shifts between past and present with the perspectives of youth and experience. Themes of power corrupting also figure in.

At only around 100 pages, this is a fully realized story that doesn’t have the ‘thin-ness’ that novellas can suffer from sometimes. It’s an interesting and unusual world and characters.

Perfect for spooky season and excellently written, this was a quick read that I really enjoyed. The plot and characters came to life and I found myself surprised yet again by the depth and range the author has for crafting stories that feel so visceral and raw across so many genres.

I absolutely love when stories begin in the thick of it. Forget about long, drawn out introductions and dump me directly into the conflict. The Return of the Sorceress does exactly that and it does it so incredibly well. For a novella just over 100 pages, I was extremely impressed by how much happened in such a short amount of time. This is a perfect read for those wanting a fast paced yet short story about revenge and redemption. I've never read anything by Silvia Moreno-Garcia before, but I sincerely hope she dabbles with this world again.

If Silvia Moreno-Garcia writes it, I will read it. This is a wonderfully and deeply crafted novella full of magic, vengeance, redemption, you know, all the good stuff. I would love to revisit this world.

I couldn't get through this title. It ended up not being for me, but I hope it finds a hope with other readers.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

✨ Review ✨The Return of the Sorceress by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

This is one of the very first books I got on netgalley but it archived the day after I got it, before I could download it, and it's been haunting me ever since 😂

"At its most rudimentary form, however, magic is willpower and though she no longer had much magic left, inside of her there was still her colossal willpower."

This novella features Yalxi, a former Supreme Mistress of the Guild of Sorcerers. She sets out to regain a diamond that carries with it great power and sets out on a quest that takes her from cities to swamplands, from thieves to empty buildings. The book is set in a fantasy world that could either exist in 1900s rural Mexico or in an ancient Mayan civilization -- it was seemingly timeless. The magic system was simple but clever involving drawing from one's own power, blood, and nahuales (like shapeshifting magical creatures that come from mesoamerican mythology).

Overall, I enjoyed this novella and I'm glad I was finally able to pick it up!

"Spellcasting aged you on the inside. She was thirty-six but felt a woman of sixty without the magic jewel. Magic was a game for the young and yet it was experience that honed the magic. This paradox meant every sorcerer clung to whatever tricks they had."

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Genre: fantasy
Reminds me of: SMG's Gods of Jade and Shadows
Pub Date: out now

Read this if you like:
⭕️ fantasy novellas
⭕️ magical systems rooted in mesoamerican/Latin American lore
⭕️ SMG's work

Thanks to Subterranean Press and #netgalley for an advanced e-copy of this book!

Absolutely loved this book! I enjoyed reading it, and read it in two sittings, it was well written and an excellent book.

I started this book and just... couldn't get into it. I really wanted to after loving Mexican Gothic so much, but it just didn't grab me.

I have enjoyed everything I have read by Silvia Moreno-Garcia and this novella is no different. The author has a way of sucking the reading in immediately. Despite it being a novella, the main character and the world are well flushed out. My main complain is that I wish it was longer and I wish there was more between this characters or more about their backstory, otherwise it was a fun and quick read!

3.5 stars total for me. This was a novella but felt more like a chapter taken out of an epic fantasy novel/series. It read as though the reader should know a bit more about the world and the characters to really become invested, though we received all the information we needed to navigate through the story. Though the writing was beautiful and detailed at parts, I would have preferred more world building over beautiful descriptions and atmosphere - the author did very much excel with atmospheric and descriptive writing. I also felt as though I could understand the emotions of the main character, Yalxi, fairly well - this was also well done!
A quick enjoyable read, that left me wanting more!

I received an ARC of this book via NetGalley.

I have such a hard time with novellas, especially SFF ones, and I think this is a case of them not being my jam. There’s nothing wrong with this book but I just wanted more from it. If Fantasy novellas tend to be up your alley, though, I would definitely give this one a chance as Silvia Moreno-Garcia can obviously write a beautiful sentence.

really enjoyed reading this book by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, it was what I expected from the author and I really enjoyed reading this. Overall this was a great read.

I am seriously loving all of Silvia's books. This one is a novella and I wish it were longer because I wanted more.

My first introduction to Silvia Moreno-Garcia was the fantasy/magical realism novel Gods of Jade and Shadow which was excellent. I was really pleased to see a fantasy novella coming out this year so I gladly picked it up. First of all, whoever she has doing her covers does a fantastic job. I really liked this cover!

Most of the time, I find that novellas aren't long enough to flesh out the world to the point where I really get into the story. This story was simple but had some twists to it and provided enough background of the characters, the world, and the magic system to tell an interesting story.

Yalxi is out for revenge after being betrayed by her lover and deposed Mistress of the Guild of Sorcerers. She is seeking revenge for the betrayal and trying to get back the diamond that is the source of great power. She isn't the best sorceress or the nicest person but it is hard not to root for her even after you learn more about her past. This is the best kind of novella that has a rich enough world that you just got a taste of with an ending that leaves open the possibility of coming back for more.

There is a whole world here. This very short novella contains within it the potential for an epic fantasy series, and I think it was to the detriment of these characters, this very cool magic system, and this intriguing world, for it to have been written as a novella rather than at least a lengthy novel. I could have used more time with the characters and more about their past relationship, so I could develop a stronger emotional connection to the story. As it was, I enjoyed this, but it was a middling sort of enjoyment, because it all felt surface-level, like I was skimming or reading the bare-bones of a story. I wanted much more!

Thanks to Netgalley and subterranean press for an ARC. I really enjoyed this novella. It was engaging right off the bat with fully fleshed out characters and a vivid setting. Really interesting magic system and I always love a magical creature companion. Great fun short book - totally worth a read. Typical great Moreno-Garcia writing too!

Silvia Garcia Moreno tackles every genre. She is a talented storyteller. Her world building and character development are on point. This was a departure from other noir and Gothic novels I've read by her. Fun fantasy read

I received “The Return of the Sorceress” by Silvia Moreno-Garcia from the publisher as an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. All of my opinions in this post are my own.

It was really helpful to know that this was actually a novella because it helped me reframe my review and thoughts. I honestly really enjoyed this novella and I enjoyed the world that Morena-Garcia created. Yalxi was a good character along with her nahual because she was such a well developed gray character that really was strengthened when you looked at the growth and dynamic she shares with her companion. While I really loved this world and the idea, I really wanted it to include a little more of the story because it was really quite good. I also loved the nahual - which was actually my favorite. The nahual was amusing and cute, even though it did feed on blood.

Overall I'd give it 4 stars because it's a novella so I have to forgive some of the elements which could've been developed more. I also didn't love Yalxi, but I kind of thought that maybe that was kind of the point? I felt a little back and forth about it since I like to feel truly invested in characters I'm reading. Overall, I enjoyed the story and would definitely recommend to to others to read! It's definitely a quicker, but fun, read with fantasy magic elements and a quirky spirit companion.

The sad thing with novellas is that they aren’t longer! This could have been a novel and I would have kept reading. Loved the characters, loved the story, I LOVED IT ALL!! Don’t sleep on this, go read it!!