Realms have split apart, the Stones of Elation have been hidden, and warnings of dokojin drift among the tribes.

The land and its people are corrupted. The Sachem, chief of the Unified Tribes, is to blame.

It is this conviction that drives Annilasia and Delilee to risk their lives. Afraid of the aether magic he wields, they enact a subtler scheme: kidnap his wife. In her place, Delilee will pretend to be the chieftess and spy on the Sachem.

Unaware of this plot against her husband, Jalice is whisked away by Annilasia. Pleading with her captor proves futile, and she rejects Annilasia’s delusional accusations against the chief. After all, the Sachem has brought peace to the land.

Yet a dangerous truth hides in Jalice’s past. As she and Annilasia flee through a forest of insidious threats, they must confront the evil plaguing the tribes and the events that unleashed it.

Today is my stop on the Storytellers on Tour Book Tour for Jesse Nolan Bailey’s debut novel, The Jealousy of Jalice! Big thanks to the SoT folks for having me along & to the author for sending a copy of the book my way!!

The Jealousy of Jalice is the first book in a series (I’m not sure how many books are planned) called A Disaster of Dokojin. The name of both the book & the series really grabbed my attention…there’s just something almost playful yet ominous about both, and they for sure stand out among the crowd.

My reviews lately have felt increasingly scatterbrained & I’m worried this one will be no exception, so be sure to check in with some of the other bloggers who have posted reviews for the tour! In particular, Arina at The Paperback Voyager really articulated so much about what makes this book special.

The first thing I want to mention about The Jealousy of Jalice is that it opens incredibly strong. Like…fucking hell, the first 100 pages of this book absolutely riveted me. Personally, if an author can get me to truly care about the characters in the early going of a book, I’m delighted. For sure, there are times when a character grows on you over the course of a story, and that’s great too. But if I’m instantly rooting for the main characters, it makes the reading experience that much more intense.

Such was the case with the two main characters here, Annilasia & Jalice. Annilasia is a tillishu (a trained assassin), and a childhood friend of Jalice, who has become the chieftess of two united tribes. Annilasia and Delilee (a sort of handmaiden and decoy for Jalice…an idea that brought to mind the Star Wars prequels!) devise a risky plan to remove Jalice from the heavily-protected Fortress where she lives. They feel her marriage to the Sachem is built on a foundation of lies, and that Jalice’s mind has been actively poisoned. The unification of the two tribes is perhaps not the peaceful union Jalice believes it to be, and there are dark forces at work.

So while her name isn’t on the cover, Annilasia was the star of this book for me. I just absolutely adored her…oof. She is such a complete badass, and willing to do damn near anything for the sake of her people, and for her friend who has had her mind & memories tampered with. The process of attempting to convince Jalice that things are not what they seem is a long & frustrating one, but Annilasia is singularly focused on her task.

The Jealousy of Jalice is complex in a lot of ways, and I’m not going to attempt to unpack much more in the way of the plot here. This is a richly detailed world that Bailey has created, and I think fans of dark fantasy will definitely find themselves quickly immersed in this story.

I will say that I occasionally found myself wishing the prose were a bit more simplified. Bailey is an exceptionally talented writer, but some of the stranger, more reality-bending passages lost me a little. The book is also structured in a way that challenged me at times…it’s not always balanced between the POVs, and there’s a big section where we shift away from Annilasia and Jalice, back to Delilee. Which is cool because Delilee is a great character in her own right, I just think I would have preferred a more balanced approach to the POVs.

That said, I honestly dug the hell out of this book. It is wildly original & diverse, and features a couple of non-binary characters, which I love to see in a fantasy novel. There’s some creepy af demon-monster-hellbeast thingies, some epic & thrilling action sequences, and as I touched on earlier, some wonderfully memorable characters. I was fully invested in Annilasia & Jalice’s story from the word go, and I’m anxious to see where the story goes from here!

 

Congrats to Jesse Nolan Bailey on his awesome debut novel, and good luck in the SPFBO!! Again, big thanks to Storytellers on Tour for organizing this tour & having me along for the ride!

P.S. there is a giveaway happening for this tour & you can enter HERE!!