This is Where the Future Bleeds by Mike Brooks

Book Review

Elloise

On the high moors north of Mereport, Kitt Carver, the diviner, uses Moonstruck iron rods to track destinies, and the one she is after has a strong pull. This is high-risk work in a place where the future is dead, where Slydewaps are always near, and time is frozen. Kitt has never given up before, and she isn’t about to quit now. This destiny is the one she needs; one that somebody will pay highly for. After all, the Swallowmage has seen it in her vision.

Escaping the moors, destiny in hand, and her team mostly intact, Kitt can breathe a sigh of relief, though it won’t last long. The double-cross will hit her where she least expects it. Now, Kitt finds her life in danger, with few clues as to who is out to harm her, and no idea which of the many destinies she has sold over the years has marked her as a target. A death threat and the arrival of a not unattractive stranger sets off a quest that will take Kitt beyond the boundaries of her comfortable existence.

This is Where the Future Bleeds is a fun, fast-paced adventure of rogues in which Kitt has to uncover the mystery of who wants her dead and whose destiny it relates to. The premise is a world that was almost destroyed, and the moors, or the Timeless Lands, house highly coveted destinies that the wealthy will pay greatly for to better their future opportunities. Few are as adept at Kitt as retrieving those destinies, but we quickly learn that the high reward comes at high cost.

The characterisation is the easy winner here, from our gritty, impatient heroine, to her rival, champion duelist of the streets, Two Tongue Derna, who also happens to be her childhood friend and is enjoyably colourful on the page. Sulian the Swallowmage is an intriguing member of Kitt’s entourage – a mage and a drunk who has no control over when their visions may come, and who dabbles in many areas of magic they perhaps shouldn’t.

This book is more lighthearted than we have seen from this author before, and is more of the classic ‘romp and rogues’ adventure, though with a good handful of modern fantasy traits added in to even the balance for the current readership. The action keeps coming and builds to a satisfying conclusion.