I enjoyed The Keeper’s Six so much. I’ve been wanting to dive into Kate Elliott, and The Keeper’s Six, a stand-alone short novel seemed perfect. First of all, the protagonist in this book is a woman older than I am. It is very rare to see a 60-year old woman as a kick ass protagonist when she isn’t also immortal. Esther is a grandmother. Secondly, this book has dragons. A dragon is the antagonist. Thirdly, this book is quite Jewish, which is refreshing. I’m hoping that this is an introduction and not a one-off, because I would like to see so much more of this universe.

The action starts off with a kick. A middle of the night phone call sends Esther rushing to her son’s house, where she discovers he has been kidnapped. A dragon scale in a pot of roux gives her a good clue to who has taken Daniel.

The Keeper’s Six is a portal fantasy. Esther is a member of a disgraced Hex, a team of six who can traverse the Beyond – the space between realms. Earth is one of many realms, and an unimportant one at that. Esther did something about a year ago that got her Hex decertified by the Consortium. You get some idea of what that means, but not entirely. Several past events are referred to with little exploration. Which is fine, because you don’t want pages and pages of info-dumping, but I was very curious about all those past events and would probably have enjoyed more pages of info-dumping.

When I commented in a forum that I was enjoying this, I was asked if Esther ends up with the dragon in the end. No, but she does change the dragon’s life in an interesting way. Also, there is more than one dragon.

CW: kidnapping, trafficking of sentient beings. past injuries, death of spouse in the past, evidence of torture and abuse, injustice.

I received this as an advance reader copy from Tordotcom and NetGalley. My opinions are my own, freely and honestly given.

I have read before from Kate Elliott and I think she does a wonderful job creating a world and plot in such a short amount of pages. I was expecting the same from this novel and it just disappointed. It was too much all at one time. The world building was very vague and we would get a glimpse here and a glimpse there but I never fully understood how it worked and it left me confused. I did like the fact that the plot was a mom going across dimensions to find her son but I still wanted more from it.

In this novella, we follow Esther who has not been to the Beyond in over a year. The Beyond is an alien landscape that stretches space and time and doesn't have any set rules. Esther's son is kidnapped by a dragon lord and she takes her team or Hex to go find him and try to save him from the dragon's in the Beyond. But is the secret that she has been trying to hide going to come to light and ruin her family?

3.5 stars!

Thanks to Tordotcom and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

The premise of this is really interesting—a middle aged mom has to rally her crew to save her adult son who's been kidnapped by a dragon. Esther and her crew have been banned from doing work in the Beyond, which obviously causes tension between them, and I think Elliott did a really good job at establishing the fact these are all characters who have long, complicated histories with one another. I really liked the character dynamics, and I like the world Elliott's allowed us to visit, but I only liked this novella; I didn't love it, even though I wanted to.

This was, in part, because while it's obvious Elliott has thought a lot about how this alternate reality works, so much of it comes as an infodump and it's a bit much to take in all at once for such a small amount of space. I would've really loved to see this world as a novel and I think this particular story would've made a good companion novella if it didn't have to do so much of the legwork, but I still thought it was a very fun story. I also thought that in some places the dialogue felt choppy or a bit too contrived, but I also liked the humor that Elliott employed. There's some good stuff about labor and how much paperwork sucks and terrible bosses, and I do hope to eventually re-visit this world and see these characters again going on new adventures.

All in all, I think this world wants a little more breathing room than a novella, but it's still a good time and Elliott's grasp on her characters is excellent.

I spent the whole first half of this novella wondering whether this was a companion story to some pre-existing novel universe. That’s how little I understood about the magic system, the traveling, the roles in the Hex, the dragons, and even the characters themselves. It felt like we should have walked into this with at least one full novel of pre-existing information but we didn’t. And no explanation at all was forthcoming until about the 45% mark.

I kept putting it down and wasn’t driven to pick it back up again. The characters would probably be intriguing if they got more screentime, but honestly I wasn’t invested (mostly because I spent the entire first half confused).

I really enjoyed other books by Kate Elliott but this one wasn’t it for me

There were a lot of really neat signifiers of an unreal timeline in this book, and some of the jargon that got explained later was a little jarring at first but no biggie because it was actually quite immersive.

The characters here, particularly their ages and interactions following a lot of personal history, were very engrossing and made me chuckle at times. Esther: great name. Love that she is a grandma because Elliot themes the book around Esther defending both maternal and grandparental love. She's incredibly intelligent, strategic, and quick-thinking. Her battles of wit between multiple dragons are quick-moving and I love to read intellectual arguments of logic. Kai: FASCINATING neopronouns due to nonbinary gender and interspecies pronoun work. Kwo backstory is beautiful although quite twisty and tragic. Gus and Chava: I'm not a fan of authors detailing accentics phonetically on the page, but Chava was compelling enough for me to not mind it that much.

The Hex dynamic is so cool. Due to the scifi tone of the book, the group functions in a way that feels to me like a Pathfinder RP party. I do wish we knew more about Gus and what Ghosts do; that is my main criticism of the Hex construction. Due to this and other general tone things I think this would make a great video game or movie, or perhaps animated short show. The 'party' scenes make dungeon-crawl-esque passages like in Dunkirk read very quickly and in a communicative step by step way.

This book has some hilarious and very real moments regarding labor rights and organizing, which was a nice relatable break from some of the more fantastical aspects. I was annoyed at the addition of a love interest for Esther when her dynamic with her first husband and his death wasn't really explored that much. It was a little trope-y at first but when the "poets" lore was revealed, Esther and Shahin totally made sense. Would love to more about the structure of the Concilium and how it came to be. Also, how does a Keeper become one?

Some of this dragon lore is confusing as hell particularly how Kai came to be a Nexus. They deal with issues such as trafficking and forced breeding which was a great and hopefully intentional analogy for our time. I love how Elliott describes their sensory language and non-verbal but still voiced communication. As a professional singer, this was very cool to me.

I was a bit jarred when after the book's environment being written as it was, the Hex's home base is in Hawai'i. The family scene at the end is so beautiful though, and reminds me of groups of my own family I have been with in the past. Elliott also treats descriptions of nature and sound beautifully and this is no exception. She set up the potential for future books so nicely, though I don't know if there will be any!

VIBES THIS BOOK REMINDS ME OF:
Stranger Things, Killers of a Certain Age (book), Ocean's 8, Firefly, His Dark Materials, Inkheart (surprisingly, Zosfadal gives this)

BEST QUOTES:
"But he was a poet, and poets are notoriously stubborn creatures wherever they may hail from."
"Guide our footsteps towards peace and make us reach our desired destination."

Safe to say this was not what I expected, but I had a great time with "The Keeper's Six" by Kate Elliott. Thank you Tor and Netgalley for the ARC.

Basic premise, Esther wakes in the night with a call from her son, upon arriving at the magic waystation he operates to a space connecting the various realms in existence, he is gone. So like any good mother she calls her, technically, suspended team to go track him down. And woe upon the status quo of any organization in their path!

Reasons to read:
-Honestly I have never seen some of the backgrounds in this story in a fantasy novel before. And that was just a fantastic change of pace
-Subverted my expectations
-Awesome worldbuilding
-There are worldending dragons as a classification
-Realm spanning bureaucracy!
-Past actions coming back to bite people in the butt in interesting ways
-Just because she is on a mission doesn't mean she can't flirt with the charming sharp dressed man

Cons:
-When giving info on how to survive in a hostile environment, maybe mention it before you are in the middle of the area. Gave me flashbacks to backpacking I've done before.

I was intrigued by the summary for The Keeper’s Six by Kate Elliott, particularly Esther Greene’s quest to save her abducted son. Overall, I liked the story. The writing had a certain flow to it, which made reading the novella easy. The story just wasn’t what I thought it was going to be.

The Keeper’s Six had a great start though. I liked that the story featured a Hex—essentially a motley crew—who had gone their separate ways, and were reunited. And the opening chapters had all the tension I expected as the scenario unfolded. Esther’s anxious inner-monologue and attempts to view the situation in an analytical light—to find as many clues as possible—were fantastic. However, an early reveal sort of removed some of that nail-biting tension from the narrative. And the story took a turn that I was, ultimately, lukewarm toward in the end.

The world building and setting were by far one of my favorite aspects about The Keeper’s Six. It was complicated, and it had all the hallmarks of a sprawling portal fantasy world. The particular rules about the Beyond provided a rigid structure the characters were knowledgeable about and followed to the best of their ability, while also supplying enough environmental obstacles and some not-so-friendly dangers to fulfil the promise of action made by the summary. It was the kind of setting I want to linger with, to catch all the details it had to offer. It was so fascinating, and by the end I wanted more time with it, since the story was bursting with references to prior incidents that had occurred there.

Overall, I liked the Keeper’s Six.

Disclaimer: this copy of the book was provided by the publisher (Tor.com) via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review, thank you!

I wasn’t the biggest fan of this book. It’s concept intrigued me a lot but I don’t feel like the execution was great. It’s a short book but felt too long (i.e. was kind of a struggle to get through). It might’ve been better if it were full novel length because so many parts of this universe were left untold. The characters felt a bit flat and not like individuals.

Thank you, Netgalley and Publisher, for this Arc!!

I really loved this! It was a short read but still included all the depth of a full fantasy novel.

The inclusion in this story was great and made my heart so happy seeing this diverse cast of characters that I came to love. The idea for this is equally amazing, and I'd love to read more.

Esther is a Lantern. Part of a small team that travels the multiverse. Each person in the Hex has a specific talent, giving them their own important role. When Esther's son, the Keeper, goes missing, she breaks suspension to find him. Along with the rest of the Hex, this results in a grand adventure.

Out January 17, 2023!

I’m a big fan of Kate Elliott, so I was excited when I got the chance to read her new novella, The Keeper’s Six. It drops you right into the action. Esther’s son was kidnapped, but he left a clue as to who did it. She gathers the old crew together to rescue him.

They travel away from Earth via a portal into the Beyond, moving through it to cross to different Realms. It’s action-packed, funny, unique, and has shape-shifting dragons! Is that a giant dragon skull on the cover? Yes. Yes, it is.

I loved it! The end left a huge smile on my face. It’s truly an enjoyable story from start to finish. I highly recommend it. It comes out next month on January 17. Thank you to Netgalley and Tordotcom for my copy.

There's a lot to keep track of in this book. A lot of world and realm rules condensed into the action and some of it I had to try and wrap my head around more than once. The novella actually coalesced quite nicely at the end, having set enough groundwork for me to enter back into the world of the opportunity arises while also not lingering too long without answers and a conclusion. It's a lot crammed into a short book but really worked.

Magnificent an totally addictive! It have taken me a while to start reading it, because I was busy, but once I started it was a very quick read! I highly recommend it!

I have only ever read Kate Elliot’s older, longer work so I was looking forward to reading her newer work with this novella. It drops you quickly into the story with new terms and worldbuilding. A character who is also new to this world is introduced after a bit, allowing the narrator to share terms and definitions. This is a bit dense for a novella, but the plot quickly moves on to the main mystery of why the MC’s son was kidnapped and what is really going on. I enjoyed the MC being an older woman with grandchildren and her love for her family. Some of the secondary characters were less defined due to the short length. What really decided me on the rating was asking myself would I want to visit this world and characters again, and the answer was a resounding yes. If anything, I wanted the novella to be longer. I give it 4 stars and hope the author visits this world again.

I really like the premise of this book, a bamf mom rescuing her adult kid,

It felt like there was just too much going on with not enough support? I struggled to keep up with the world the story was trying to introduce and all that was happening.

The idea is great but the execution just wasn’t up to the strength of the story idea.

Ahoy there mateys! This was sadly a miss for an author whose work I usually love.  This novella is about "a world-hopping, bad-ass, spell-slinging mother who sets out to rescue her kidnapped son from a dragon lord."  Sadly it was time to abandon ship at 45%.

For such a short book, I experienced dread when trying to finish.  I couldn't really connect to the characters and the world building was so light.  Even the dragon didn't excite me.  I think the problem here might have been the length.  The ideas were interesting in concept but the pace felt so slow and the plot convoluted.  So far the two novellas I have read by Elliott both were problematic for me.  Maybe I need to stick to her novels.  Arrrr!

Really enjoyed this book, and a great introduction to Kate Elliott. Enjoyed the characters and the story. Will need to read more from Kate Elliott.

I was very excited to read this short novel by Kate Elliot about a mother going on a dimension hopping adventure to rescue her son from the hoard of a dragon! I'd never read anything by the author before and this seemed like a easy place to start. I have to say the cover for this book is amazing and so perfect! I don't know how anyone could overlook it, I just had to know more.

The best part about this story for me was by far the great representation on so many fronts. For such, a short work it is packed full of diversity. Yay for parents, especially mothers in SFF books! There are not nearly enough. I have to say I was pleasantly surprised that Ester was going on a rescue mission to find her adult queer son. And that he was in an interspecies queer relationship and they had little interspecies babies. Suffice it to say I was very excited by this developed, The family dynamic between the characters, particularly Daniel & Ester (those are the only two we really get any time with). The banter, love, and unspoken understandings between these two was fantastic. Ester, in general, as a character just has extremely entertaining dialogue. Her quick wit obviously makes her the cleverest person in any room she's in, and often gets her and her crew into trouble. Her bantering, especially with Daniel and the sunglass wearing poet guy from the hoard were by far my favorite elements of this story.
The interdimensional world of The Keeper's Six was intriguing if nothing else. I think the worldbuilding could have been better in a longer novel. This felt like a novella that is meant to be part of a bigger series, like I would have gotten more enjoyment out of the world if I'd already has a cursory knowledge about how the world & the portal hopping worked. Elliot does her best to explain, but it ends up feeling like info dumping, unfortunately and kinda made my eyes glaze over. I just kept wanting to get back to the banter or plot instead.
All the other side characters fell a little flat to me, There just wasn't time to really flesh them out and build up what I think are probably some really fun & interesting character dynamics given that this group has known each other a long time & been through so much together. But I honestly had a hard time telling them apart sometimes during the action scenes. I think in a longer book or if Elliot wanted to expand on this story/world into more books or a series I would definitely be interested in that. There is alot to love about the glimpses of the world and characters that we did get here. I'd like to know more about the crew in their younger days or the story of how things went wrong for them. I would love to see more of Daniel Kai & the kiddos!
Overall, even though I found so much to enjoy in this story, I think some people may find that it falls flat for them or is simply too short to do its plot & characters justice. But others who don't mind the novellas' tendency to be not quite enough may see the diamond in the rough of this and find themselves left wanting more.

Wow I loved this novella! I will definitely be checking out more Kate Elliot.

Full review coming closer to release!

Sometimes novellas can feel like tryouts of sorts for a wider world/idea, and this is one I'd love to see more of, if Elliott is so inclined. The core idea here is that an older Jewish magic user's son, one of the anchors of a wayhouse between worlds, is kidnapped by a dragon mafia boss, and Esther has to get her old magic gang back together to help get him back and carry out one last job. The front half has a lot of weight to carry in terms of setup, but the world building manages to be incredibly well done, I like that we have an older woman as our main character, and the world itself is incredibly intriguing. There's also genderfluid dragons, bones of dead worlds built on dragon skeletons, bureaucracies, anarchists teaching those indebted to a dragon mafia boss about the concept of unions while baking them rugelach, and just a hell of a heist. Definitely pick this up when it comes out in January, it'll be a. great treat for the winter.

I requested a digital copy in order to sample the prose on my phone (since I don't have a eReader) before requesting a physical copy for review. My review will be based on the physical ARC I read (if I qualify)