Confession: I was tired this week and did not initially give this book the attention it deserves. There may be a certain level of grumpiness that comes through in the beginning of this review, which is my fault, not the author’s. As always, my ARC of The Quest for Lennox Levane was provided for free by the author.
Here’s the blurb:
For her entire life, Reyna has been shunned by her village for her magic, something she never wanted to have. She has heard that the goddesses in the Blue Forest make deals, and after her mother dies under mysterious circumstances, she is desperate to trade her magic for her mother’s life. But the goddesses only talk to people with royal blood or pure hearts. When a knight named Finn who is distantly related to royalty knocks on her door, Reyna thinks she’s found a solution. The only problem is Finn wants to kill her childhood hero—Lennox Levane, a witch who is trying to overthrow the king—and he’ll only help Reyna if she helps him.
Reyna soon finds herself on a dangerous journey that forces her to face the dark undertones of her relationship with her mother. Her travels with Finn soon bring her into the path of another knight, the arrogant Thomas. As she encounters friend and foe and learns more about the mysterious Lennox Levane and her cause, Reyna will be forced to question whose side she wants to be on: the side of Lennox Levane, or the knights that she is beginning to care about.
We begin with a map. I love this feature in a fantasy novel, can’t stand them in crime fiction. I particularly dislike floorplans of the stately home where the murder was committed. But I digress. I’m not sure a map was necessary for Lennox Levane as the journey doesn’t seem particularly epic, although this is book one of a trilogy, so maybe the quest will become more confusing as time goes on.
I felt immediate sympathy for our heroine, a young witch named Reyna. I couldn’t quite fathom why she’d want to raise her horrible mother from the dead, and this does become a mystery throughout the novel. Her reasons by the end do make a fair amount of sense, but it’s worth noting that there is a trigger warning in place for abusive parenting.
As for the titular Lennox Levane, her mythology is nicely worked in. She’s (in the context of the novel) a real person, but the way people idolise or fear makes her into an almost godly figure. I found myself eager to meet her and sort the man from the myth, so to speak.
And then we come to the knights, cinnamon roll Finn and arrogant Thomas. Sigh. Finn spent most of the novel being almost unbearably stupid. Which is a shame, as he’s also the love interest. He’s just so nice, it wasn’t very sexy. Thomas had a few more layers to him, with some good twists in his backstory. But these two are definitely the weakest part of the book.
At this point, I realised I wasn’t reading a cosy fantasy. There’s serious peril for both Reyna and the knights, and some very dark deeds are hinted at. Seeing how witches are treated is historically accurate to the real world, but was heartbreaking to read. By coincidence, I’ve been doing some work on the Newcastle Witch Trials so reading about similar things in a fantasy world was very upsetting. The stakes are upped further by how much witches are hated. As Reyna’s magic inevitably develops, she starts to be in real danger. This makes the book exciting, but can be a hard read.
The novel really finds its footing towards the end, and sets up the trilogy well. I definitely want to read the second book as I feel Jones’s writing became more confident as the novel progressed. There’s a big twist at the end of Lennox Levane, which I guessed approximately two paragraphs before the reveal. Not to brag, but I’m quite good at guessing twists, so Jones gets points from me for skillfully hiding the truth. This bodes well for book two. I’m giving Lennox Levane 3.5 stars out of 5.
