I kindly received an ARC of this from May when she posted an offer on her Twitter.

The Calyx Charm is the third and last instalment of the Sacred Dark series. It started with The Lord of the Last Heartbeat which I read and loved in 2019. I wasn’t as sold on the second in the series, The Immortal City.

In The Calyx Charm, we meet Mio’s brother Tibario and his childhood friend Violetta/Mercurio. We also get a secondary storyline with Tibario’s mother and Violetta’s parents.

The world-building in this series is so different from anything I’ve ever read before and that means you can’t really know what to expect next. The magic doesn’t work the way you’re used to from fantasy books that all seem to build on tired old tropes.

I think that when you build such an innovative fantasy world you tread a narrow line between too much exposition/info dumps because people aren’t familiar with what it is you’re trying to do, and too little, meaning solutions can feel a bit sudden and ”deus ex machina”. I feel like May found a nice balance but maybe in places veered towards that latter.

I enjoyed reading a trans woman character written by a trans woman. It felt genuine and surprisingly real even in a fantasy setting. And I loved Tibario – he was such an ass in the first book (IIRC), but he really got to redeem himself and find his own HEA in this one.